Korean Combat Duty Disputed : Robertson Seeks to Stem Flap Over His War Role

As he moves closer to seeking the GOP presidential nomination, television evangelist Pat Robertson is struggling to resolve a budding controversy over his claim to be a combat veteran of the Korean War and accusations that he pulled strings to avoid front-line duty.

Responding to the accusations that he never saw action and used the political influence of his late father, Sen. A. Willis Robertson (D-Va.), to avoid it, Robertson has circulated a military document and a letter from Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) to show he served as a Marine in Korea during the conflict there.

Aides say Robertson is appalled at the accusations and is preparing a detailed report on his military service, which he will make public soon. Meanwhile, they say he refuses to comment further.

Questions about the nature of his war record have persisted, however, in part because Defense Department officials say Robertson’s military records, which are not available to the public, reflect duty in Korea but show no actual combat service. Marine records show he was an assistant adjutant of the 1st Marine Division, the officials say.

According to the military document circulated by Robertson, however, Robertson was awarded the Korean Service Medal “with three bronze stars for participation in Communist China Spring Offensive, United Nations Summer-Fall Offensive and Second Korean Winter.” The bronze stars denote that he was in Korea during the fighting, not that he participated in it.

Robertson’s autobiography, “Shout It From the Housetops,” and material issued by his Christian Broadcasting Network refer to his “combat” service in Korea. Apparently relying on those sources, news accounts of Robertson’s interest in seeking the Republican presidential nomination have often described him as a combat veteran.

The Pentagon defines a combat veteran as someone who was under fire.

Warner, in the letter being circulated by Robertson supporters, wrote the minister that he had seen press accounts questioning his military service and recalled one night when both were serving as lieutenants in Korea: “As we talked you could hear the distant rumble of . . . artillery fire.”

However, a spokesman for Warner later said the senator could not verify that Robertson was ever actually under fire.

McCloskey Gives Account

The controversy over whether Robertson avoided combat service through his father’s intervention was touched off by former California Rep. Paul N. (Pete) McCloskey Jr. (R-San Mateo), an ex-Marine who was awarded the Navy Cross, the Silver Star and a Purple Heart after being severely wounded while leading six bayonet charges as a platoon leader in Korea.

According to McCloskey, he and Robertson, both young second lieutenants at the time, left San Diego in January, 1951, aboard the Breckinridge bound for the Far East. McCloskey says he distinctly recalls that Robertson spoke frankly of asking his father to intervene to keep him out of combat and was subsequently assigned to a base in Japan while most of their fellow officers continued on to Korea--where many were killed or wounded.

McCloskey, now a Los Angeles attorney, gave his account of Robertson’s military service in a letter to Rep. Andrew Jacobs Jr. (D-Ind.), another Korean combat veteran. Jacobs released copies to several columnists, and the account recently appeared in columns in hundreds of newspapers throughout the country. In a telephone interview, McCloskey told The Times: “I would swear under oath what I wrote in the letter.”

McCloskey, who wrote the letter at Jacobs’ request, made a similar accusation about Robertson to reporters in Orange County in February, 1981, but the matter received little attention outside California. At that time, McCloskey told The Times that he questioned the minister’s “preaching about patriotism” since Robertson had avoided combat service through his father’s influence.

In his 5 1/2-page typewritten letter to Jacobs, McCloskey said that before the ship Breckinridge reached Japan, Robertson “spoke frankly of his desire to avoid combat and to have his father . . . intervene on his behalf.”

‘Good-Natured Ribbing’

McCloskey said he recalled “a lot of good-natured ribbing of Pat and equally good-natured response on his part before we docked at Kobe (in Japan) . . . Something was said about a ‘six-minute life expectancy for platoon leaders in combat’ or words to that effect. . . . “

Most of his fellow officers thought he was joking when he said he intended to telephone his father and request transfer off the ship, McCloskey continued. But Robertson eventually did make two telephone calls, he said.

“My single distinct memory is of Pat, with a big grin on his face, standing on the dock at Kobe after his second phone call, saying something like, ‘So long, you guys--good luck,’ and telling us that his father had gotten him out of combat duty,” McCloskey wrote.

McCloskey said the following June, a little more than four months later, he encountered a fellow officer, John Gearhart, who said he had been one of three other second lieutenants “who had been pulled off the ship with Robertson at Kobe, in Gearhart’s mind solely to disguise the political nature of Robertson’s case.”

McCloskey said Gearhart told him that he and the other two officers were “not happy about their assignment.” He added that Gearhart had pointed out to an aide to the Marine Corps commandant that there were four second lieutenants who had seen no combat duty.

Made ‘Liquor Officer’

“The next day all four were flown to Korea post haste,” McCloskey said. “Upon arrival, Robertson had been made the division ‘liquor officer,’ the other three had all been sent to rifle companies. As I recall, John Gearhart had already been wounded twice and was on his way back to his company when I met him that day in June.”

Robertson’s major duty, McCloskey wrote, “was apparently to fly to Japan once a week and bring back booze for the officers’ mess, but I would assume he had other headquarters assignments as well. On occasion I believe it was possible that those at Division Headquarters could hear the distant firing of our own artillery batteries. . . . “

McCloskey said he no longer knows Gearhart’s whereabouts, and The Times was unable to locate him for comment.

In an interview with The Times, another former Marine officer, Louis G. Boutell, now a Bethesda, Md., public relations executive, substantiated McCloskey’s account of Robertson’s having been pulled off the Breckinridge before he went to Korea, but he said he never heard Robertson talk about having his father intervene. Boutell said his recollection was that altogether five lieutenants were left in Japan.

“I distinctly recall that when we first landed, word was passed that five lieutenants were being pulled out and one of them was Robertson,” he said. “We all knew his father was a U.S. senator and we felt we could put two and two together. We were all kids and about to get our ass shot off so we weren’t particularly happy that anybody would get pulled off, especially if political pull was involved.”

And another former Marine, Dr. Fridolin W. Heer, a San Francisco surgeon who was wounded in Korea, said he recalls Robertson’s having been pulled off the Breckinridge before it went to Korea.

Does Not Recall Details

“I remember that it occurred and we all laughed about it,” Heer said, “but I don’t recall the details.”

“Pete McCloskey and I have been good friends for 35 years” Heer volunteered. “I know he’s very honest, a straight-shooter.”

McCloskey’s allegations, as outlined in the letter to Jacobs, were first published by columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak. They wrote that while using political connections to avoid combat duty is not uncommon or a crippling disability for a candidate, “what makes the charge pertinent is that somebody--the television evangelist or the former congressman--is not telling the truth.”

Robertson was not quoted in their column, but Benton Miller, a spokesman for the Christian Broadcasting Network, was quoted as saying Robertson “did not have anyone intervene for him. He never called his dad.”

Columnists Jack Anderson and Joseph Spear subsequently cited the McCloskey allegations and said Robertson “has already been hit by his first political stink bomb.”

Anderson and Spear, noting that McCloskey had said that most of the Marine officers believed Robertson was joking about having his father intervene, wrote:

“That is what Robertson told us was possibly the case. He said McCloskey is an honorable man and had written what he believed to be true. The officers sometimes joked about their low life expectancy in combat--their way of relieving tension as they headed for the war zone. It is entirely possible, Robertson suggested, that he joked about invoking his father’s influence.

Aghast at Charges

“He confirmed the bare bones of McCloskey’s letter--that he had been pulled off the Breckinridge in Japan and was later assigned to division headquarters in Korea--but said he was aghast at his fellow Marine’s charges.

“Robertson denied that he had telephoned his father. He also said it was ‘absolutely not true’ that his main job at division headquarters was, as McCloskey wrote, apparently to fly to Japan once a week and bring back booze for the officers’ mess.

“ ‘I was no war hero,’ Robertson told us. He never saw front-line duty, but he came under frequent artillery fire and earned three battle stars, he said. ‘I just went where I was ordered,’ he said.”