[Mb-civic] General Commanded Troops in Vietnam - Obituary - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

General Commanded Troops in Vietnam

By Patricia Sullivan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 19, 2005; Page A01

William C. Westmoreland, 91, the controversial four-star general who 
confidently predicted victory, leading the American military buildup in 
Vietnam until the 1968 Tet Offensive shattered public confidence, died 
July 18 at a retirement home in Charleston, S.C., his son said. The 
cause of death was not immediately available.

Westmoreland commanded U.S. troops in South Vietnam as the U.S. military 
presence grew from about 20,000 advisers in early 1964 to 500,000 troops 
in 1968. Facing a confounding enemy, a fearful public turning rapidly 
hostile and an undependable ally in the South Vietnamese government, 
Westmoreland came to personify the military establishment against which 
a generation rebelled.

<>He was called a war criminal, was burned in effigy on campuses, and 
historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. called Westmoreland possibly "our 
most disastrous general since Custer."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/18/AR2005071801713.html?nav=hcmodule 

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