westmoreland reached the high levels he did, including the assignment to vietnam, but i think that maxwell taylor and westmoreland, if they didn't have a falling out, they had a diversion of view appointments. -- viewpoints. it was documentable that when the first forces came ashore, marine elements of march of 1965, taylor as ambassador had no warning they were coming, and nobody told him, and the pentagon knew and didn't tell him. he was marginalized by that point. that's the detailed analysis and evaluation of general taylor's topic for another day, but he was sinned against as well as sinning. i'll leave it at that. ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for coming and for the great questions. [applause]

but soon maxwell taylor became the chief of staff and rescued westmoreland from the personnel quality making him his secretary of the general staff. two years later, having in the meantime been promoted to the two star rank, westmoreland was rewarded by taylor with command of the 101st airborne division. things rose quickly for him after that. two years as a division commander followed by the three year assignment as the superintendent of the united states military academy at west point them promotion to lieutenant general and six months in command of the 18th airborne corps just long enough to qualify for another promotion soon thereafter. westmoreland was sent to the vietnam in january, 1964. as deputy to the general who was then commanding u.s. forces there, then in june 1964 westmoreland replaced him as the commander of u.s. military assistance command vietnam, the start of the four year stint in that post for westmoreland. beginning in the spring of 1965, the end united states began deploying ground forces to vietnam. under westmoreland who decided to conduct a war of attrition,