Armed Forces: Tough Man, Tough Job

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ARMED FORCES

To many Pentagon stargazers, Lieut. General William Westmoreland has long looked like a future Army Chief of Staff. And he almost certainly will be if he succeeds in the thankless job he got last week. He is the new U.S. military-assistance commander in South Viet Nam. Since January, "Westy" Westmoreland, 50, had been deputy to General Paul Harkins, who, after his experiences, must look forward to retirement Aug. 1.

Where most of Harkins' army career was spent in administrative jobs, Westmoreland is an elite combat officer. A South Carolina native, he attended The Citadel for a year, switched to West Point and graduated in 1936. Westmoreland was first captain during his senior year, Sunday-school teacher to the faculty children, and apparently something of a ladies' man. His left cheek bore a scar from a boyhood automobile accident, but Westmoreland did not discourage the idea among the local girls that he acquired the wound in a duel.

Westmoreland commanded an artillery battalion in the 1942 invasion of North Africa, fought in Tunisia and Sicily. On D-day he landed on Utah beach as executive officer of the 9th Infantry Division. After the war, he served as chief of staff of the famed 82nd Airborne Division, led airborne troops in the Korean war, at 43 became the youngest major general in the Army, commanded the 101st Airborne Division, served as superintendent of West Point.

In South Viet Nam as Harkins' deputy, Westmoreland works seven days a week, gets out into the field at least twice a week. Two weeks ago, he was fired on by snipers. His ability to get huge amounts of work out of his staff has come to be known as "the Westmoreland Stretch." There are those who think that the job of U.S. commander in South Viet Nam is an impossible one. It may be, under the present rules But there are also those who think that Westmoreland is one man who may achieve the impossible. Says onetime Army Deputy Chief of Staff James Gavin: "Now things are going to be settled one way or the other in Viet Nam; Westy won't let things drift along, He won't mope around about it."