John Paul Vann: a Military Iconoclast Leaves a Legacy New Orleans

John Paul Vann: A military iconoclast leaves a legacy WASHINGTON — The irony in last New Orleans States—Item after military victory. Doves have de- of opposition leader Tran Ngoc Chau week's military funeral for John Paul picted him as a former critic of the war Vann at Arlington National Cemetery somehow corrupted by power into em- ("one of the greatest men I ever was the prominence of cabinet members bracing what had once disillusioned him. Rowland Evans knew"). To Vann, Thieu's peremptory and four-star generals symbolizing the The facts are dramatically different. personnel policies were steeped in crass very establishmentarians whose bungling Besides being one of the very few heroic and politics and, therefore, damaged the war in Indochina he battled for a decade. figures to emerge from the war, Vann effort. Like the funeral, many eulogies have from the first to the last was a non- Robert Novak Vann often said U.S. military interven- distorted Vann's unique role in Vietnam. conformist critic of tragically mistaken tion in Vietnam should have been contin- Hawks have painted him as a superpa- policies that moved Saigon and Washing- ously supplied by sea rather than triot, bravely but simplistically questing ton. At the end, performing essentially ization four years before it came. As a through the gargantuan logistical appa- military duties formerly entrusted to a lieutenant-colonel in the early 1960s, ratus that overflowed South Vietnam. lieutenant-general, Vann had not changed Vann urged arming ARVN with M-16 au- Acres and acres of now-deserted camps his critical outlook as an obscure lieu- tomatic rifles in place of obsolete M-1 were seen by him as mute testimony to tenant-colonel ; a decade earlier. That carbines. The Pentagon refused, forcing the stupidity of American military bu- hard, critical view is his legacy. ARVN to lag behind well-equipped U.S. reaucrats. He despised the armchair troops, who then did most of the fighting generals in their air-conditioned officers' Avoided criticism — and dying. clubs and loathed those Foreign Service What changed was Vann's discretion. officers assigned to the pacification pro- Although still outspoken, Vann realized More respectable gram who valiantly tried never to hear a in 1970 that Ambassador Ellsworth Bunk- With the advent of Richard M. Nixon shot fired in anger. In return, they er in Saigon would sack him at the next and Vietnamization in 196'9, Vann's views viewed Vann as a pop-off who did not outburst. Knowing his influence would became more respectable and his voice play by the rules. abruptly end if he became a dismissed more powerful. But he criticized the rebel, Vann avoided public criticism. But slow U.S. troop withdrawal and argued Beating the system talking privately to us late into the night unsuccessfully with Gen. Cr eight on What dismayed them most was Vann's at campsites in the Vietnamese wild- Abrams and the Pentagon against keep- talent at beating the bureaucratic sys- nerness, Vann left no doubt he felt anti- ing tens of thousands of American com- tem. Against Gen. Abrams' wishes, he Communist forces in Vietnam had made bat soldiers in a useless residual role. piloted his own helicopter — perhaps en- a mess of it. His private ire in recent years was suring his death in battle but giving him Most important, Vann deeply believed strongest against President Nguyen Van a mobility unequalled among senior offi- 50,000 American lives lost in Vietnam Thieu and his intimate relationship with cials. Last year, he named a junior For- were tragically unnecessary. He felt that Ambassador Bunker. Whereas the em- eign Service officer as his deputy for if President Johnson in 1965 had fixed as bassy in Saigon viewed Thieu as the best pacification, overriding determined State hard U.S. policy the prevention of a Vietnamese leader available to the U.S., Department opposition. Communist takeover and nothing more, Vann felt his political intrigues undercut It was this rare marriage of dedication as few as 100,000 U.S. troops would have the war effort. In official circles, he and iconoclasm that made Vann indispen- John Paul Vann sufficed. made no secret he felt Bunker was much sable. In assessing Vann's death, that is But that would have required immedi- too soft on Thieu. the essential point to be made, because Dedication and Iconoclasm ate strengtherft of the South Vietnam- Specifically, Vann never forgave Bunk- fq combination is so sadly lacking in made bim indispensable ese Army (AR.01) — in effect, Vietnam- er for not fighting Thieu's imprisonment the misery of Vietnam. --4 .

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