Maxwell Taylor

Maxwell D. Taylor (1901-`987) was a general in the U.S. Army, Ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam (July 14, 1964 — July 30, 1965) and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Early life

Graduating from West Point in 1922, he was commissioned in the Corps of Engineers, usually considered the most intellectually demanding branch, but transferred to Field Artillery and stayed with that branch until becoming a founder of Airborne .

Talented in languages, he taught French and Spanish at West Point, and studied Japanese while attached to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo between 1935 and 1939 while simultaneously serving as a militry attache to China.

After graduation from the Army War College, he held both command and Army staff positions before the start of the Second World War.

Second World War and Postwar

Taylor built a solid combat command record with the 82nd Airborne Division in Sicily, then commanding the 101st Airborne Division from the Battle of Normandy onwards, including Operation MARKET-GARDEN.

Far East

He was the last commander of the Eighth United states Army in the Korean War, and then took the U.N. Korean command through 1955.

Army command

Taylor was Chief of Staff of the Army betweenn 30 June 1955 and 30 June 1959. From a strategic standpoint, he opposed the massive retaliation doctrine of the early Eisenhower adminiistration, moving to a "flexible response" approach using more conventional troops. He also directed the reorganization of Army forces into Pentomic divisions, a restructuring intended to let ground forces operate during tactical nuclear warfare, but that proved ineffective.

During his tenure, he dealt with sensitive Army operations both domestically (i.e., the Arkansas) school integration, and opposed dependence upon a massive retaliation doctrine, pushed for an increase in conventional forces to ensure a capability of flexible response, guided the transition to a "pentomic" concept, and directed Army participation in sensitive operations at Little Rock, Lebanon, Taiwan, and Berlin; retired from active service, July 1959;

Policymaker

After retirement from the Army in 1959, he gained the trust of John F. Kennedy and had a unique role of Military Representative of the President in 1961, essentially monitoring the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who had lost Presidential confidence over the Bay of Pigs. Kennedy then made him Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff between 1962 and 1964.

Vietnam

As a much more trusted general, he was more involved than other chiefs in developing Vietnam policy, although he was not in Lyndon Johnson's inner circle. In 1963, however, he and Robert McNamara were sent to South Vietnam, in the McNamara-Taylor mission, as the final assessors of whether the U.S. should continue to support Ngo Dinh Diem.

After the South Vietnamese Buddhist crisis and coup of 1963, in which Diem was overthrown and killed, he became Ambassador and chief of the United States Mission to the Republic of Vietnam in 1964-1965, replacing Henry Cabot Lodge.

Taylor's relations with South Vietnamese generals were not of the smoothest. After the High National Council, he summoned four of the leading military officers, including Nguyen Van Thieu and Nguyen Cao Ky, and delivered a strong lecture, which was perceived as patronizing in the Vietnamese culture.

Post-Vietnam

After returning from Vietnam, he took an advisory role to the President, including chairing the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, 1965–1969, and heading the not-for-profit Institute of Defense Analysis between 1966 and 1969.