WHEELER, Earle Gilmore

(b. 13 January 1908 in Washington, D.C.; d. 18 December 1975 in Frederick, Maryland), army officer who, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was the highest-ranking military officer during the peak of America's participation in the Vietnam War.

The only son in a family with three children, Wheeler's parents were Clifton F. Wheeler, a dentist, and Ida Gilmore, a homemaker. Wheeler graduated from Eastern High School in Washington, D.C., in 1928 and received an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy, from which he graduated in 1932. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the infantry. On 10 June 1932 he married Frances Rogers Howell; they had one son. During World War II, Wheeler served as commander of an infantry battalion and as operations officer of the Ninety-ninth Infantry Division before becoming chief of staff of the Sixty-third Infantry Division in May 1943. Holding the rank of colonel, he helped oversee the division's training program and then, in the final months of the war, participated in its drive across Germany to the Danube River.

Following the war Wheeler served primarily in staff positions, rising to the rank of general. Urbane, modest, intelligent, and articulate, he earned a reputation as a hardworking professional who understood the Washington bureaucracy, leading to his appointment as army chief of staff in October 1962. In this post he handled the deployment of troops during the Cuban Missile Crisis and during the civil rights disturbances in Mississippi and Alabama, gave vital support to the 1963 Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the Soviet Union, and forged a good working relationship with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who was impressed with Wheeler's low-key style and readiness to defer to civilian authority. As a result, President Lyndon B. Johnson named him chairman of the Joint Chiefs in July 1964.

The Vietnam War dominated Wheeler's tenure as chairman of the Joint Chiefs. From the outset he believed that only the swift application of overwhelming military power would compel North Vietnam to cease its "aggression" against South Vietnam. Faced with the possible collapse of South Vietnam, Johnson in 1965 agreed to a bombing campaign against North Vietnam and the dispatch of American ground troops to South Vietnam. But concerned about the impact of the war on his domestic political program and the possible intervention of China if the United States waged all-out war, he adopted an ad hoc strategy, placing restrictions on the bombing of North Vietnam and deploying troops in small increments. Johnson's piecemeal escalation fell far short of what Wheeler thought was required. However, imbued with the military's "can-do" spirit and not wanting to appear disloyal to civilian authority, he did not contest Johnson's actions. Displaying his negotiating skills, Wheeler also kept the other members of the Joint Chiefs, who were more obstreperous than Wheeler and vehemently favored a powerful blow against North Vietnam, in line, avoiding a major confrontation with the White House. Apparently, Wheeler believed that once the war had been Americanized, he could maneuver Johnson into giving the military the strategic freedom to fight the war on its terms.

During the next two years Wheeler issued optimistic statements about the prospect of victory in Vietnam. Privately, however, he increasingly feared that Johnson's "gradualism" gave the enemy time to adjust to American pressure and ultimately would fail. Either unwilling or unable to develop a strategy that conformed to Johnson's desire to fight a limited war, Wheeler pressed for an expanded bombing campaign against North Vietnam, attacks against enemy sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia, and the mining of North Vietnamese harbors. As the war dragged on, Johnson lifted some of the bombing restrictions and sent more troops to South Vietnam. But he still placed limits on the operations of American units, prompting the Joint Chiefs in August 1967 to consider resigning en masse to protest his policies.

Wheeler made his major effort to change the war's strategy at the time of the Tet offensive, an effort on the part of the Vietnamese Communists to capture cities in South Vietnam in early 1968.While Tet was a disastrous defeat for the Communists, he saw it as an opportunity to get Johnson to mobilize reserve forces to build up the strategic reserve, which had been depleted severely by the demands of Vietnam, and eliminate the remaining restrictions on American operations. During a visit to South Vietnam in February 1968 he and General William Westmoreland, commander of American forces in Vietnam, agreed to ask Johnson for 206,000 additional troops, an action that would necessitate calling up the reserves. Westmoreland wanted the troops to follow up on the victory in Tet and win the war by extending ground operations into Cambodia, Laos, and the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Vietnam. Wheeler, knowing of Johnson's reluctance to expand the war, did not inform Johnson of Westmoreland's plans and instead accompanied the request with a pessimistic appraisal of the situation in South Vietnam in the hope that he could frighten Johnson into providing the troops. Wheeler's request prompted a fierce debate within the administration over the war's strategy, and in a rebuke to the military, Johnson, at the end of March, refused to mobilize the reserves and decided to deescalate the war.

Doubting that the war now could be won on American terms and suffering from health problems, including a heart attack in 1967, Wheeler looked to retire when his four-year term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs expired in July 1968. But holding Wheeler in high regard and accustomed to his nonconfrontational manner, Johnson extended his term for another year. When Richard Nixon became president in 1969, Wheeler again wanted to retire; however, Nixon persuaded him to stay an additional year, implying that he would listen more closely to military advice than Johnson had. Although Nixon agreed to Wheeler's proposal to go after the Communist sanctuaries in Cambodia, his strategy centered on withdrawing American troops from South Vietnam and turning over the ground war to the South Vietnamese. While skeptical that Nixon's policies would ensure the survival of South Vietnam, Wheeler endorsed them out of concern that the American army was disintegrating under the strains of Vietnam. He retired in July 1970 after serving as chairman of the Joint Chiefs for an unprecedented six years. Wheeler died of heart failure and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Wheeler placed much of the blame for America's eventual defeat in Vietnam on Johnson's makeshift approach to the war. While there is much to criticize about Johnson's strategy, Wheeler is not above reproach. Under his leadership the Joint Chiefs never forcefully challenged Johnson with their conviction that the United States should go all out to win. At the same time, they failed to articulate a strategy that fit with the war Johnson wanted to fight. In this way Wheeler helped enmesh the nation in a strategy that was doomed to failure.

Wheeler's chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs and civil-military relations during the Vietnam War are discussed in Mark Perry, Four Stars (1989), George C. Herring, LBJ and Vietnam: A Different Kind of War (1994), Robert Buzzanco, Masters of War: Military Dissent and Politics in the Vietnam Era (1996), and H. R. McMaster, Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam (1997). An obituary is in the New York Times (19 Dec. 1975). Oral histories by Wheeler are in the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston and the Lyndon B. Johnson Library in Austin, Texas.

John Kennedy Ohl