during the entire first year of the Korean War. Over time, the change in contact with field commanders had brought about a significant power shift. No longer could a Service Chief influence the outcome of JCS discussions to the extent that General J. Lawton Collins had during 1950-1952, when, as Army Chief of Staff, he had acted as executive agent for the JCS in the conduct of the Korean War. What the services lost, the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman gained. If the Chiefs were to stay abreast of developments, the Chairman had to keep them informed. In his dealings with the Chiefs, the Chairman had been strengthened.

Despite this accretion of power, Wheeler, in contrast to Taylor, valued JCS collegiality and worked to hold the Service Chiefs' confidence by keeping them fully informed about what transpired at high-level meetings. He saw himself as a corporate spokesman, charged with persuading civilians to accept military advice. Wheeler also differed with the Taylor approach to splits. By 1965, after there had been a major turnover in JCS membership, the Chairman and the Chiefs decided that their advice might carry greater weight with the Secretary of Defense and the President if it were an agreed position. Accordingly, they began a conscious effort to resolve disagreements rather than sending them to the Secretary for decision; the number of JCS splits dropped sharply. Unanimity did not, however, bring a noticeable increase in JCS influence, and Wheeler became increasingly frustrated and disappointed with his lack of influence with his superiors.49

To outsiders, General Wheeler seemed a member of the Johnson administration's inner circle. Like President Kennedy, Johnson preferred informal advisory groups to the formal NSC system. As US involvement in Vietnam grew, General Wheeler went more and more frequently to the White House. He was

included in the small group that advised the President on key decisions in the war, and from October 1967 he regularly attended the President's Tuesday lunch meetings of senior officials at the White House, where important policy issues were discussed. He consulted the Chiefs before meetings with the President and reported to them "practically verbatim" what had occurred. Therefore, according to Wheeler, the Chiefs were not unhappy with this procedure and were satisfied to rely on him as their representative to the President.50 But Wheeler's access did not equate to influence. Working against him were Secretary McNamara's assertiveness and self-confidence and the trust that the President placed in the Secretary.

The conduct of the war in Southeast Asia was the major issue of contention between the JCS and the civilian leadership. In late 1964 Wheeler united the Chiefs in recommending a hard, swift blow against North Vietnam with air strikes against ninety-four targets in about one month. On 1 December 1964 he presented the JCS case at the White House. Johnson, however, followed McNamara's prescription for the application of graduated pressure through Operation ROLLING THUNDER. As a result, some of the targets were not struck until 1966 or 1967; a few still remained untouched when ROLLING THUNDER ended in October 1968. During the spring and summer of 1965, another difference arose over the introduction of US ground combat troops. "I have a very definite limitation on commitment in mind,” McNamara told the President, "and I don't think the Chiefs do. In fact, I know they don't." Although the buildup reached 549,500 by 1968, it was smaller in size and slower-paced than the military wished.51

Increasingly, Wheeler found himself acting as the implementer of civilian decisions that he did not support. Johnson characterized him as "a good soldier," who would "follow

[his] Commander in Chief.... He is loyal to McNamara and me-but has convictions." Continually carrying out decisions with which he disagreed undermined Wheeler's standing with the Secretary as an advocate of stronger measures. In December 1965, for example, civilian leaders debated whether to suspend bombing of North Vietnam to test the chance of entering negotiations with Hanoi. When the President asked McNamara, "Is this what you want to explore with the Chiefs?" the Secretary replied, “The Chiefs will be totally opposed.... We decide what we want and impose it on them." In August 1967, as popular opposition to the war mounted and McNamara recommended curtailing the bombing, Wheeler testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. He argued against scaling back the bombing on grounds that "the air campaign is going well... achieving its objectives,' #52 but his claim undercut the Chiefs' argument for intensifying ROLLING THUNDER.

The 1968 JCS debate over appointing a "single manager" for tactical air assets in South Vietnam's I Corps Tactical Zone— among the most acrimonious of Wheeler's tenure—overtaxed the Chairman's ability to maintain collegiality and achieve corporate consensus. The field commander, General William C. Westmoreland, USA, wished his Air Force deputy to have operational control over all Air Force and Marine fixed-wing aircraft there. Not only did the Commandant of the Marine Corps vehemently and repeatedly object to such a move, but the Army and Navy Chiefs opposed Westmoreland's proposal. Wheeler recommended supporting Westmoreland because it would be "militarily unsound" to dictate to a senior field commander how his forces should be organized and commanded but also considering the single manager an "expedient" due for review when the tactical emergency ended. The Deputy

Secretary of Defense approved Wheeler's compromise, but the Marines continued to object and, through local arrangements, regained practical control of their aviation assets.53 Thus, the Chairman's attempt to maintain collegiality failed, and his solution was thwarted in the field.

When the shock of the 1968 Tet offensive increased domestic opposition to the war, Wheeler remained committed to an independent, noncommunist South Vietnam. He recommended large-scale mobilization, rebuilding the strategic reserve, sizable reinforcement of South Vietnam, and intensified bombing of the North. Instead, the President approved a small reserve callup, a modest deployment to Vietnam, and a major cutback of bombing. As he prepared to announce decisions that went against JCS advice, Johnson sought to minimize the differences, and Wheeler went along:

President Johnson: "With the exception of a few bombing targets, General Wheeler, General Westmoreland, Secretary McNamara, Secretary Clifford and State are in general agreement about the conduct of the war?"

GEN Wheeler: "Yes."54

Despite his differences with Wheeler, Johnson requested special legislation to extend the Chairman's tenure, and in June 1968 Wheeler was extended for a year beyond the statutory four-year limit of his term.55 Wheeler now saw his task as opposing those civilians who wanted to withdraw quickly from Vietnam and accept defeat. He worked with field commanders to paint a picture of battlefield success. By doing so, however,

battlefield success. By

he paved the way for a total bombing halt leading to peace talks, which he believed had no chance of success.

When Richard M. Nixon became President in January 1969, he reinstituted a struc

resume if the communists failed to show restraint. When the communists launched a new round of attacks early in 1969, Wheeler recommended an intensive, sustained air campaign against North Vietnam. Instead, Nixon ordered unannounced bombing of enemy sanctuaries in Cambodia. Determined to Vietnamize the war through phased US withdrawals, the President directed larger and faster pullouts than the Chiefs advised. Nonetheless, early in 1970 Wheeler testified before Congress that Vietnamization had "gone well.... If we proceed patiently....... we will, eventually, achieve our objectives in Southeast Asia."57 His recommendations rejected by both the Johnson and Nixon administrations, Wheeler was worn down by the constant tension between loyalty and conviction. He greeted his successor in the spring of 1970 with the words, "You'll never survive!"'58

Nixon's National Security Adviser, Dr. Henry A. Kissinger, later offered a perceptive analysis of Wheeler's dilemma in his final year:

He believed, rightly, that military advice had not been taken seriously enough in the Pentagon of the Sixties, but when the time came to present an alternative he offered no more than marginal adjustments of the status quo. He prized his direct access to the new President, but he rarely used it.... High military officers must always strike a balance between their convictions and

their knowledge that to be effective they must survive to fight another day. Their innate awe of the Commander-in-Chief tempts them to find a military reason for what they consider barely tolerable.... They rarely challenge the Commander-inChief; they seek for excuses to support, not to oppose him. In this manner Wheeler had participated in a series of decisions any one of which he was able to defend, but the

cumulative impact of which he could not really justify to himself.59

The 1970s: Dealing with the Impact of Vietnam

Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, who became Chairman on 2 July 1970, had been Chief of Naval Operations during the last three years of Wheeler's chairmanship and thus had firsthand knowledge of the operation of the JCS system during some of the most difficult years of his predecessor's tenure. At his nomination hearing Moorer gave his views on the Chairman's role within the corporate system. He testified that while the Chairman should not hesitate to express his own opinions on issues before the Chiefs, he must prepare the agenda and manage the Joint Staff in a way that encouraged full consideration of opposing points of view. The "melding of different service views into strategic guidance and policy" were, he declared,

"not evils to be abolished but... healthy values to be preserved."60 In times of crisis, however, Moorer frequently exercised his authority in a manner quite different from the approach that he had espoused before his confirmation.

Moorer was not willing to confine himself to the role of corporate spokesman. Selected as Chairman on Secretary Laird's recommendation, he developed a close working relationship with Dr. Kissinger. This, together with the confidence placed in him by the Secretary, allowed Moorer to exert considerable control over operational matters. Admiral Moorer sometimes acted on behalf of the JCS, informing the Service Chiefs only afterward—if at all. During the March 1971 Lam Son 719 operation into Laos, the spring 1972 invasion of South Vietnam, and the October 1973 Arab-Israeli War, the National Command Authorities (NCA) and the NSC

were in direct telephone contact with the Chairman several times a day to get the latest operational information and to relay directions, which Moorer carried out without informing the Chiefs in advance. It was, he said, "the only practical way" to proceed when dealing "in real time."61

During most of his first term Moorer, like Wheeler, frequently found himself at odds with the administration's approach to the conduct of the Vietnam War. But by 1972 President Nixon was ready to use unprecedented

military pressure against North Vietnam as Moorer and the Chiefs had long advocated. The Chairman was instrumental in the implementation of this new approach. On a number of occasions he deflected the President's demands to deploy more B-52s and hit more targets than Moorer thought necessary. Moreover, during North Vietnam's spring 1972 offensive and the B-52 bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong in December 1972, Moorer was in direct contact with the senior air commander