WAR STORIES
General Abrams, Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker and occasionally others would tell an old war story to make a point. One example was illustrating how difficult it is to adapt to new and different circumstances. As Abrams once remarked, ‘We’re all the victims of our own experience.’

This came up during a briefing for the visiting General Earle Wheeler, when Abrams said it reminded him of his first regimental commander. ‘I was his communications officer,’ said Abrams. ‘I had these four pack radios on horses. And I was never allowed to be near the regimental headquarters with them. He was opposed to radios, and he used mounted messengers for all of his communications. So one day we were out on a maneuver, and I was about 10 miles back. They sent somebody back to get me, and I galloped up, reported to the regimental commander, and he said, `Can you send a message to the brigade commander?’ I said, `Yes, sir.’ `All right,’ he said, `send this message: ‘Compliments of Colonel Herr. I have no communications left. Send back my messengers.” That small vignette from Abrams’ service as a lieutenant of horse cavalry at Fort Bliss was used — as was often the case — to illustrate a point of contemporary relevance.

TERRITORIAL FORCES
Regional Forces and Popular Forces, which remained in place in their home areas, were what put the ‘hold’ in General Abrams’ ‘clear-and-hold’ operations. By 1970 they had grown to some 550,000 men and, integrated at that time into the regular armed forces, constituted more than half the ARVN’s total strength.

As early as January 1969 William Colby, newly installed as deputy to General Abrams for pacification support, noted the rapid buildup of the RF and PF and the improved training and armament being provided to them, with about 100,000 then having M-16s, which they didn’t have a year earlier.

Abrams had, soon after taking command, deliberately channeled the new rifles to those elements. ‘The RF and PF, a year ago,’ he said in August 1969, ‘received the highest priority of anybody. That’s where the first M-16s went, before [the] ARVN.’

As the RF and PF improved in capabilities — and performance — Abrams wanted to see them get credit for what they were accomplishing. ‘One thing I’ve been chafing under,’ the general said to his staff, ‘[is that] when we brief visitors, the role of the RF and PF in this war is substantially submerged. There’s a tendency to talk about the ARVN, and for some time now the RF and PF have borne the brunt of casualties and this sort of thing, and the toll that they’re exacting from the enemy is substantial….if we get talking about the security of the people, this is a big part of this whole thing. This is where it is.’

At the end of 1969, commenting on redeployment of allied forces, Abrams noted that the’slack has been taken up by the Territorial Forces. And this has happened since August.’ Someone observed, ‘It’s the nature of the war.’ Abrams replied: ‘Yes, that’s right. But it’s also — you know, I was always wondering about what the hell would we get for that investment in those 300,000 M-16s — you know, all that? Well, it’s commencing to show.’

They were hanging on to those weapons, too. As Colby pointed out in July 1970: For the Territorial Forces the weapons gained/lost ratio was about three enemy weapons taken for every friendly weapon lost; five years previously just the opposite had been the case. Abrams’ comment: ‘Territorial Forces?…Ah, these rabbits are coming along good!’

And finally, said Abrams at a commanders conference in October 1971, ‘It’s been [the case] for a long time, the RF and PF are carrying the major burden of the war.’

WEATHER
As everyone who served in Vietnam knows, extremes of weather there are almost the norm. Weather briefers led off every meeting, and often the news was not good.’By and large,’ Abrams once remarked, ‘the fellow covering that thing first on Saturday, his pitch has always been about the same, `The roads are drying out…pretty good surface, the enemy is bypassing road cuts.’ It always kind of irritated me,’ said Abrams, ‘because he seemed so happy about it — the enemy is doing good and so on.’

Weather spectaculars were common. In October 1968 the briefer reported that for the past week ‘we forecast one to two inches of rain in I Corps and got 36 and 67/100 inches.’ In October of the next year General Wheeler was visiting. ‘They had some rainfall yesterday up in I Corps,’ Abrams told him; Hue got 1412 inches, ‘a new all-time record high,’ and Dong Ha got 7.2 inches. Wheeler’s response to this: ‘Practically a drought at Dong Ha.’

Even so, that was next to nothing compared to Hue Phu Bai at the same season. During the first nine days of the month, reported the briefer, rainfall there totaled 59 inches, ‘greater than any monthly total ever recorded over the past 30 years at any station in Vietnam.’ On one day alone, 22 inches of rain fell. By the end of the month, Hue Phu Bai ‘wound up with 75.06 inches of rain. And,’ added the briefer, ‘it didn’t rain at all on 14 days of the month.’

On one Saturday morning about three years into General Abrams’ service as COMUSMACV, the weather briefer gave a detailed description of the monsoon seasons and their effects. ‘I want to thank you for a very good presentation,’ said Abrams at the conclusion. ‘In all the time I’ve been here I’ve never heard this explained in as much depth. I guess you [finally] decided to take us into your confidence.’

THE WIEU
Sessions called Weekly Intelligence Estimate Updates were the source of a high percentage of the tapes in the collection. (The acronym WIEU was pronounced ‘woo’ on the tapes.) Typically these sessions took place at MACV on Saturday mornings, with General Abrams and his senior associates on the MACV staff as the participants. Usually Ambassador Bunker also attended.

Once a month, the senior field commanders from around the country joined in. Besides that, high-level visitors often attended these meetings — people such as Admiral McCain from CINCPAC and General Wheeler, chairman of the JCS. During his tenure, Abrams continually pressed for the agenda of the monthly meetings to be broadened to include much more than just military aspects of the war, and of course more than just an intelligence update. In addition to the usual agenda, as Abrams once told a visitor, ‘We try to generally have one or two things that have been done in depth over a period of time, trying to challenge what we think.’ Abrams liked to use briefings as springboards to wide-ranging professional discussions.

These were viewed by most participants as the best parts of the WIEUs, second only to what some called ‘Abrams eruptions.’ On one occasion, after such a debate had gone on for 20 minutes or so, the briefer provoked uproarious laughter by interjecting, ‘Sir, if I might just add one comment — .’

The de facto master of ceremonies for the WIEU was the MACV J-2, Maj. Gen. William E. Potts. He was serious about the job. Officers who served with him can remember the punctilious Potts, sitting with a stack of papers in front of him, compulsively straightening them, side to side, then top to bottom, over and over and over again. And they remember Potts with a small notebook of particularly sensitive information that he consulted guardedly, close to his chest, much like W.C. Fields taking a peek at his cards during a high-stakes poker game.

Asked in one meeting when the last enemy battalion-size attack had taken place, Potts responded without an instant’s hesitation: ‘You’ve had 11 since the first of July. One this past week was reported as battalion-size, but after the reports all got in, it was a company-size.’

That was vintage Potts, as was another occasion when General Abrams wondered what it would look like if certain data were displayed in graphic rather than tabular form. ‘Put up backup Slide 5,’ said Potts, and there it was, as though by magic, shown the other way. Even Abrams was impressed.

At another WIEU, the matter of intelligence reports on suspected enemy tanks was raised. ‘I think I have a report on that,’ said Potts. ‘Step out, please.’ Instantly a new briefer appeared and gave a complete rundown on the subject. When Abrams asked for a comparison of enemy input and throughput during his logistics offensives for the past two years, Potts said to the projectionist, ‘Put up Slide 206, please.’ Then, to Abrams: ‘We had this updated for you last night, sir.’

Indeed Potts often seemed almost capable of reading Abrams’ mind. ‘Bill, do they have the — ?’ began Abrams. Before he could finish the sentence, Potts inserted ‘ — bar graph?’

Abrams: ‘Yeah, can they show that?’ Instantly, Potts instructed, ‘Slide 201, please.’

None of this was accidental. Unhappy with the response time on one occasion, Potts gathered his staffers to give them some guidance after the session. ‘See,’ he explained, ‘when the COMUS has his briefings, anything he’s heard for the last six months he’ll call for.’

Potts prescribed intensified rehearsals with the slide list. ‘Call for 209,’ he instructed. ‘See if it can go up within two seconds. You just have to drill, drill, drill.’

Potts himself seemed to have mastered every fact and detail of the complex events confronting MACV. When, for example, Abrams asked a question about Chinese manufacture of the T-59 tank, Potts responded with a detailed and very well-informed discussion of eight models of the T-54, the last being designated the T-55, and the Chinese version or copy, the T-59, ‘only one of which has been spotted so far.’

Not surprisingly, Abrams told Potts that he was going to be MACV J-2 for as long as Abrams continued in command, and so he was — outlasting, in the process, five MACV chiefs of staff, seven J-3s and six J-4s.

LAST DAYS
The final tape in the collection is the last staff meeting during General Abrams’ tenure as COMUSMACV, and the last segment of that tape consists of remarks by Ambassador Bunker, saying goodbye to Abrams and thanking him for their five years of shared service. Those years were, Bunker said, ‘the most rewarding of a fairly long career that began with the horse artillery in 1916.

‘Certainly the armed forces of the United States have shown determination and will and steadiness in a most difficult situation,’ Bunker went on. ‘I think it’s clear — it’s certainly clear to me — that without your leadership, and without what your colleagues have done here, there wouldn’t be any Republic of Vietnam today. And this has been due to your leadership, to not only highest intelligence and professional skill but to sensitivity, effectiveness, with what the Yankees call plain common sense.

‘And I think you know — I don’t have to tell you — that you leave with not only the great admiration but the greatest affection of all of us.’

To that, General Abrams responded characteristically: ‘Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. Gentlemen, let’s go to lunch.’ Thus ends the last tape in the collection.

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Noted military historian Lewis Sorley served in Vietnam and retired from the U.S. Army as a lieutenant colonel. He is a frequent contributor to Vietnam Magazine. For additional reading, see his A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam and Vietnam Chronicles: The Abrams Tapes, 1968-1972.

This article was originally published in the December 2005 issue of Vietnam Magazine.

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