Case of the Fallen Star

Caught in a Pentagon crossfire, a general resigns

He led his troops into combat in Korea and Viet Nam with such gallantry that he was twice awarded the Silver Star, the nation's third highest combat medal. He moved easily from battlefield to classroom, from Pentagon desk to international command, gathering ribbons and rank along the way and, last year, becoming the youngest four-star general in the Army. Then, last spring, Sam Sims Walker became trapped in a bureaucratic Pentagon crossfire, and last week he resigned from the Army after more than 32 years of service--at the same time bringing into the open a battle between generals and the Army's highest ranking civilians.

It was the end of the only life Sam Walker had ever known. Born at West Point, he was the son of General Walton H. ("Bulldog") Walker, who fought across Europe under George Patton and died in a 1950 jeep accident while commanding the Eighth Army in Korea. Sam Walker became an expert infantryman, master parachutist, and even learned to pilot a helicopter.

Fourteen months ago, Walker was given his fourth star and his toughest assignment: commander of NATO's land-based forces in southeastern Europe, with headquarters at Izmir, Turkey. This command used to have 600,000 troops, but the Greeks pulled out their 150,000-man contingent after Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974. Walker thus found himself in the unenviable role of being an American general leading a Turkish army on Turkish soil at a time when the U.S. Congress was punishing Turkey with an arms embargo.

Walker knew that a Turkish general would soon replace him. "I supported it," he told TIME Pentagon Correspondent Don Sider last week. "I thought the Turks were right to want one of their own people in the job." In February, Walker received an "eyes only" message from an old friend, Army Chief of Staff General Bernard W. Rogers. The communication assured him that Rogers was working to line up another "four-star slot" for him and implied that there would be no problem in finding one.

In May, about a month before Walker was scheduled to leave Turkey, he received another "eyes only" message. In it, Rogers confessed that he had "struck out." There would be no new four-star billet for Walker. He could take a demotion and an assignment as a lieutenant general. Or he could retire. All three-and four-star generals hold temporary rank and are subject to losing as many as two stars if suitable assignments cannot be found for them. It is a rare reality of military life, not one likely to happen to a Sam Walker.

Walker flew home and spent 30 minutes face to face with Rogers, seeking an explanation. But Rogers had none. "He said I'd done a great job over there in Turkey, but there weren't enough four-star slots," Walker recalls. He then appealed his case directly to Army Secretary Clifford Alexander Jr., who makes the final decisions on reassigning generals: "I asked him why. He wouldn't answer. Finally he said, 'I'll let you know.' Later he sent a colonel to tell me he had not changed his mind."

Walker carried his appeal up through the chain of command to Secretary of Defense Harold Brown and then, in a seven-page message, to Commander in Chief Jimmy Carter. After talking with Brown, the President endorsed the demotion in a crisp, one-page letter to Walker.

Last week, camped temporarily in a modest office at Fort Bragg, his desk flanked by a general's flag and a pile of cardboard boxes stuffed with his personal papers, Sam Walker sounded like a soldier suffering from battle fatigue. "I've thought time and time again: What did I ever do wrong?"

In fact, he had been caught in a bitter Pentagon squabble that pitted Army Secretary Alexander against Chief of Staff Rogers. Several months ago, Rogers outmaneuvered Alexander on a key general's assignment by appealing the secretary's verdict to Harold Brown. This time, it appeared to Walker and some other generals, Secretary Alexander was determined to show Rogers who is really running the Army.

Alexander's background and style have upset many old-line generals. He is the first black secretary of an Army still overwhelmingly commanded by whites, many of whom have not yet adjusted fully to the concept of a color-blind military. Alexander was educated at Harvard University and Yale Law School, not West Point. Actually, his military experience was six months' active duty as a National Guardsman. As Secretary of the Army, he asks hard questions about the treatment of black soldiers. He also is a strong advocate of a greater role for women, to the distress of many generals, including Rogers, who think too many women too soon may damage the Army's combat readiness.

Many officers suspect that Alexander's uncompromising attitude toward uniformed subordinates may reflect Secretary of Defense Brown's determination to recapture control of the Pentagon from the admirals and generals who for several years have been operating relatively free from civilian interference. Thus some old soldiers are dismayed at the direction the command at the Pentagon seems to be taking, as illustrated by Walker's fate. "It's a goddamned travesty," says one general who retired recently.

Says another: "There's a sort of cavalier attitude that everyone's expendable." A former secretary of the Army says of Walker's plight: "It's just unthinkable." Walker quotes even Rogers as confessing to him, "It's incomprehensible." Rogers was so upset that he briefly considered handing in his own resignation in protest.

Some generals maintain that Walker made a bad choice. He could have accepted his demotion, with another shot at his fourth star next summer, when other top slots will open. At 53, Walker had plenty of time for a comeback. Instead, he will try for the first time to make a life outside the Army, helped by retirement pay of $38,000 a year, just $15,000 less than his general's pay. "I'm not embittered," he said. "I'm young enough. I can do something else. I'm not going out to pasture."

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