Gains Hawkins; He Accused Gen. Westmoreland of Lying

Gains Hawkins, the Army colonel who accused Gen. William Westmoreland of deliberately understating enemy troop strength in Vietnam and became a prominent defense witness when Westmoreland sued CBS for broadcasting that charge, has died of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound, police here said.

Hawkins, 67, the Army’s chief intelligence expert on the Viet Cong in the mid-1960s, had lost a lung to cancer a year ago and was in declining health.

His body was found outside his home early Thursday, said Clay County Sheriff Sammie McNeel.

Hawkins was a key witness for CBS in Westmoreland’s $120-million libel suit against the network over the 1981 documentary “The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception,” which accused Westmoreland of a conspiracy to understate the number of Viet Cong so U.S. troops would appear to hold an advantage.

Hawkins had said in the documentary that he had been forced by the general to lower his estimates to an arbitrary level of 300,000 Viet Cong. He told CBS interviewers the estimates were “ridiculously low” and nothing more than “total crap.”

The trial, which began in New York in late 1984, ended in 1985 with Westmoreland withdrawing the suit.

Hawkins was a veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam. He retired in 1970 and settled in West Point, where he served for several years as a nursing home administrator.