WESTMORELAND’S PART Dismissal Calls Reported

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31596, 6 February 1968, Page 13

WESTMORELAND’S PART Dismissal Calls Reported

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

LONDON, February 5. British Sunday newspapers reported strong demands behind the scenes in Washington to dismiss General William Westmoreland, the American Com-mander-in-Chief in Vietnam.

The five-million circulation London newspaper the “People” carried a front-page story by the foreign editor, Terence Lancaster, under the headline: “L.B.J. Probes Great Vietnam Blunder.” “Behind the scenes there are strong demands for the sacking of General William Westmoreland, United States commander in Vietnam and the man who gave assurances that the Viet Cong build-up had been under observation for months,” the article said. “And what became clear yesterday was that there had been massive mistakes in Vietnam.” The “People” added: “Gen-

eral Westmoreland is a personal friend of the President —he calls him *Westy’—but whether he stays or is sacked, he is now a political liability for Mr Johnson.

“For whatever warnings the general may have issued he is clearly nailed as the man in charge when American prestige in South-East Asia sank to its lowest point.” The “Sunday Times” said in an article by its correspondent in Washington, Frederic Collins: “Underground criticism of Westmoreland, who for public purposes is accorded status as a hero, focuses on two points. “One is that he has instilled in President Johnson a wrong perspective on this war, concentrating on textbook military doctrines of decently-organised warfare and neglecting the political sector which many consider the more important “The other is that his strategic insights are faulty.” Collins added: “Somebody up top must have liked him (Westmoreland), for in 1956, at 42, he became the youngest major-general in the army. “From today’s perspective it might be guessed that his patron did him no great favour in bringing him up so far so fast.”

Anthony Howard, the Washington correspondent of the “Observer,” said President Johnson had conceded both he and General Westmoreland might have made some serious mistakes.

“A great deal of irritation exists elsewhere in the Government with General Westmoreland's apparent conviction that everything can still be justified in terms of the tally of enemy dead—a tally that is regarded with widespread scepticism anyway,” Howard added. In Washington a White House spokesman said there would be no comment on the articles, but he said there had been nothing to indicate from President Johnson’s remarks during the last few days that he had any doubt about the calibre of the men in South Vietnam and his advisers at home.