Superiors Ordered Him to Reduce Figures on Viet Enemy Strength, Officer Testifies

The Army officer responsible for estimating enemy strength in the months preceding the Vietnam War’s 1968 Tet offensive said Tuesday that he personally “skimmed” figures and issued orders producing official estimates that were “ridiculously low” and nothing more than “crap.”

Testifying before a federal jury hearing Gen. William C. Westmoreland’s $120-million libel suit against CBS, retired Col. Gains Hawkins said that he acted on the orders of superiors who told him that his own reports of increased enemy strength were “unacceptable.”

Hawkins’ appearance on the witness stand had been long expected. His interview in the CBS documentary, “The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception,” was a centerpiece in the broadcast’s contention that Westmoreland deceived President Lyndon B. Johnson with doctored enemy strength estimates. Westmoreland contends that CBS distorted an honest disagreement among intelligence analysts to make it appear that he had knowingly misled his superiors.

Tells Same Story

Under oath, Hawkins told the same story that he had related in the 1982 documentary about Westmoreland’s reaction in May, 1967, when he was told that new estimates of enemy strength were sharply higher.

“I cannot remember the precise words,” Hawkins told the jury, “but the substance of Gen. Westmoreland’s statement was that these high figures were politically unacceptable. The sum and substance of his statement included statements like, ‘What will I tell the President? What will I tell the Congress? What will be the reaction of the press to these high figures.’ ”

Subsequently, Hawkins said, he was ordered by Brig. Gen. Phillip Davidson Jr., the chief of military intelligence in South Vietnam, and Col. Charles Morris, who was director of intelligence production for Westmoreland’s command, to produce an estimate of no more than 300,000 enemy troops. At the time, the CIA and some Army analysts, including Hawkins, believed that enemy forces arrayed against U.S. and South Vietnamese troops numbered 500,000 or more.

Hawkins said he first “skimmed” a few thousand troops from the estimate, but the figures were again rejected.

Asks Them for Figure

After several conversations with Davidson and Morris, Hawkins said he finally told them: “If you don’t like that figure, then you give me what figure you think it ought to be and I’ll carry it out for you, I will support it for you.”

“And this,” he added, “was the beginning of the reduction of the figures. I abdicated my position as order of battle chief (estimator of enemy strength).”

Hawkins’ voice quavered, and he momentarily seemed close to tears when he admitted ordering subordinates to make arbitrary cuts in their intelligence estimates.

Then this exchange with CBS attorney David Boies ensued:

Question: You instructed or ordered intelligence officers to reduce their enemy strength estimates?

Answer: Yes.

Q: Was there any intelligence or evidence that you were aware of that justified those orders that you gave?

A: There was none, sir.

Q: Did you believe those orders were proper orders, sir?

A: They were not, sir.

Q: Did you know that at the time?

A: Yes, I knew that at the time.

Hawkins said that figures he was ordered to take to an August, 1967, meeting at CIA headquarters “represented crap. They did not in any way represent enemy strength.”

Much of the debate, and much of the testimony in the libel trial, has centered on the counting of the Viet Cong self-defense militia and secret self-defense forces.

Westmoreland’s command contended that these irregulars presented no offensive military threat and should not be counted. Defense witnesses have contended that their removal from the count was merely a way of staying beneath a 300,000 ceiling allegedly imposed by Westmoreland.

Hawkins’ testimony Tuesday was at sharp odds with the account given to the jury by Davidson when he appeared as a witness for Westmoreland early in the trial.

Denies a Ceiling

Davidson sharply denied that a ceiling had been imposed by Westmoreland and characterized the military command’s estimate as the best it could produce.

Hawkins, who will be cross-examined by Westmoreland’s attorneys today, testified Tuesday that Westmoreland had never raised any objections to the methodology being used by his intelligence officers when the higher enemy estimates emerged in 1967.

Hawkins, who remained in the Army until 1971, said he had for years refused to discuss the episode and his role in it, but that when he was approached to take part in the CBS documentary, he concluded that because the war was over, it was time for an “after action report.”