Word: westmorelands
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Agony. Abrams, who is now awaiting confirmation as Army Chief of Staff, was then commander of U.S. forces in Viet Nam. His small dissertation on following orders revealed anew the agony and ambiguity faced by the professional soldier of the long Viet Nam War, in which, as General William Westmoreland once complained, so often the U.S. commander has had to fight with one hand tied behind his back...
...like to have the Lavelle-Abrams issue argued before the Senate and the public later in the campaign, preferably in October; Republicans want to get the case out of the way well before the election, but also wished to avoid conflict with their convention last week. Meantime, General William Westmoreland has retired from the top job, and Army Vice Chief of Staff General Bruce C. Palmer Jr. has been serving as chief, waiting for the announcement. "It's an unprecedented case," says one angry Army general. "It's hard on Abe and it's goddam hard...
...third of South Viet Nam's people are now refugees. The last part of Fire in the Lake describes the effect of uprooting on Vietnamese society. The moving of the population began in earnest in 1966. It aimed at depriving the enemy of sustenance or, as General Westmoreland's civilian deputy, Robert Komer, put it: "If we can attrit the population base of the Viet Cong, it'll accelerate the process of degrading...
...part, in a week. We don't do so because we are trying to avoid civilian casualties, not cause them." Actually, that judgment in part seemed to run counter to the views of some U.S. military experts. A secret Air Force report prepared in 1965 for General William Westmoreland, then the U.S. commander in South Viet Nam, concluded that -moral considerations aside-Hanoi's flood-control system could probably not be destroyed by conventional bombing because of the system's massiveness and complexity...
...announcement has yet been made on his successor in Saigon, but the most likely choice is his deputy, General Frederick Weyand, 55, a tall, thoughtful man who would supervise the steadily dwindling U.S. presence in Viet Nam. Westmoreland, who retires June 30, is scheduled this week to receive the Distinguished Service Medal from President Richard Nixon as a parting gesture...