Nation: Case of the Fallen Star

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Walker carried his appeal up through the chain of command to Secretary of Defense Harold Brown and then, in a seven-page message, to Commander in Chief Jimmy Carter. After talking with Brown, the President endorsed the demotion in a crisp, one-page letter to Walker.

Last week, camped temporarily in a modest office at Fort Bragg, his desk flanked by a general's flag and a pile of cardboard boxes stuffed with his personal papers, Sam Walker sounded like a soldier suffering from battle fatigue. "I've thought time and time again: What did I ever do wrong?"

In fact, he had been caught in a bitter Pentagon squabble that pitted Army Secretary Alexander against Chief of Staff Rogers. Several months ago, Rogers outmaneuvered Alexander on a key general's assignment by appealing the secretary's verdict to Harold Brown. This time, it appeared to Walker and some other generals, Secretary Alexander was determined to show Rogers who is really running the Army.

Alexander's background and style have upset many old-line generals. He is the first black secretary of an Army still overwhelmingly commanded by whites, many of whom have not yet adjusted fully to the concept of a color-blind military. Alexander was educated at Harvard University and Yale Law School, not West Point. Actually, his military experience was six months' active duty as a National Guardsman. As Secretary of the Army, he asks hard questions about the treatment of black soldiers. He also is a strong advocate of a greater role for women, to the distress of many generals, including Rogers, who think too many women too soon may damage the Army's combat readiness.

Many officers suspect that Alexander's uncompromising attitude toward uniformed subordinates may reflect Secretary of Defense Brown's determination to recapture control of the Pentagon from the admirals and generals who for several years have been operating relatively free from civilian interference. Thus some old soldiers are dismayed at the direction the command at the Pentagon seems to be taking, as illustrated by Walker's fate. "It's a goddamned travesty," says one general who retired recently.

Says another: "There's a sort of cavalier attitude that everyone's expendable." A former secretary of the Army says of Walker's plight: "It's just unthinkable." Walker quotes even Rogers as confessing to him, "It's incomprehensible." Rogers was so upset that he briefly considered handing in his own resignation in protest.

Some generals maintain that Walker made a bad choice. He could have accepted his demotion, with another shot at his fourth star next summer, when other top slots will open. At 53, Walker had plenty of time for a comeback. Instead, he will try for the first time to make a life outside the Army, helped by retirement pay of $38,000 a year, just $15,000 less than his general's pay. "I'm not embittered," he said. "I'm young enough. I can do something else. I'm not going out to pasture."