WASHINGTON — During the summer of 1972, official Washington was dragging Air Force Gen. John Lavelle’s name and reputation through the mud. Multiple investigations by the Pentagon and Congress concluded that the four- star commander had ordered unauthorized bombing missions in North Vietnam and then tried to cover them up. He was demoted to major general and forced to retire in disgrace.
Lavelle maintained his rectitude until his death in 1979, saying he was acting on orders. Now, it turns out he was right.
On Wednesday, after an exhaustive re-examination of Lavelle’s actions, President Barack Obama asked the Senate to restore his honor and his missing stars. In the process, the decision officially sets the record straight about who lied during the controversial chapter, who told the truth and who was left holding the bag.
Historical records unearthed by two biographers who came across the material by happenstance show that Lavelle was acting on orders to conduct the bombing missions and that the orders came from the commander in chief: President Richard Nixon.
Nixon not only gave the secret orders, but transcripts of his recorded Oval Office conversations show that he stood by, albeit uncomfortably, as Lavelle suffered a scapegoat’s fate.
“I just don’t want him to be made a goat . . . ,” Nixon told his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, on June 14, 1972, a few days after it was disclosed that Lavelle had been demoted for the allegedly unauthorized attacks. “You, you destroy a man’s career. . . . Can we do anything now to stop this damn thing?”
On June 26, Nixon’s conscience intervened in another conversation with Kissinger.
“Frankly, Henry, I don’t feel right about our pushing him into this thing and then, and then giving him a bad rap,” the president said. “I don’t want to hurt an innocent man.”
But Nixon was unwilling to stand up publicly for the general. With many lawmakers and voters already uneasy about the war, he wasn’t about to admit that he had secretly given permission to escalate bombing in North Vietnam. At a June 29 news conference, he was asked about Lavelle’s case and the airstrikes.
“It wasn’t authorized,” Nixon told reporters. “It was proper for him to be relieved and retired.”
Removal of the blemish began in 2007, when Aloysius Casey, a retired Air Force general, and his son, Patrick Casey, wrote an article in Air Force Magazine about it. They came across recordings of Nixon’s conversations as well as declassified message traffic from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The material, they concluded, showed that Lavelle had “unequivocal authorization” from Nixon and senior military officials to conduct the airstrikes in late 1971 and early 1972.
The findings were presented to Lavelle’s widow, Mary Jo, now 91 and a resident of Marshall, Va., as well as the couple’s seven children.
The family retained Patrick Casey, a Pennsylvania lawyer, to help them ask the Air Force to reopen the case and restore Lavelle to the rank of full general. The general’s exoneration has been endorsed by the Air Force and Defense Secretary Robert Gates. On Wednesday, Obama gave his support as well. The case will now go to the Senate for final approval.
“Jack was a good man, a good husband, a good father, and a good officer,” Mary Jo Lavelle said in a statement Wednesday. “I wish he was alive to hear this news.”
