General who led American forces in Vietnam dies at 91

Although the bitterness over the Vietnam War has faded, his death drew no public statement from official Washington yesterday, a sign of the controversy that his name could still provoke 30 years after a conflict in which 58,000 Americans and at least 1.5 million Vietnamese died.

General Westmoreland led the US forces in Vietnam between 1964 and his appointment as army chief of staff in 1968. During his four-year tenure, the number of US forces in Vietnam rose from 20,000 to more than 500,000. After the Tet Offensive in 1968, which shook public confidence in the war, he asked Lyndon Johnson to send a further 200,000 men. The president refused.

General Westmoreland retired in 1972 and devoted much of his time to veterans' affairs. In November 1982 he led thousands of veterans in a march in Washington to mark the dedication of the Vietnam War Memorial. It was, he said, "one of the most emotional and proudest experiences of my life".

James Gregory, president of the Charleston chapter of the Vietnam veterans' association, yesterday described General Westmoreland as a great leader. He had received a raw deal, Mr Gregory said. "The war was actually run by the White House, not by the leadership in the field."

In 1982, General Westmoreland sued CBS for $120m (£69m) in damages after a television documentary accused him of falsifying estimates of enemy strength in Vietnam. After 18 weeks of testimony, the case was settled with an apology from CBS, just as the jury was to start deliberations. To the end, the general was unrepentant over his role in the war, blaming the US failure on a lack of troops, the shortcomings of the South Vietnamese army, and declining public support. "I have no apologies, no regrets. I gave my very best," General Westmoreland said in 1985. "I've been hung in effigy; I've been spat upon. You just have to let those things bounce off." Few had held a field command for so long, he said. "They put me over there and forgot about me. I was there seven days a week, working 14 to 16 hours a day."