Initial assignments Assigned initially to the
7th Cavalry Regiment at
Fort Bliss, Harkins continued to hone his horsemanship and play polo. In 1933, he completed the Cavalry School's equitation course at
Fort Riley, after which he remained there for several years as an instructor. Beginning in 1939, he commanded F Troop,
3rd Cavalry Regiment at
Fort Myer, serving under regimental commander George S. Patton Jr. In 1941, he graduated from the
United States Army Command and General Staff College.
World War II During the period immediately prior to U.S. entry into
World War II, Harkins participated in large-scale exercises, including the
Louisiana and
Pine Camp maneuvers. He then served with the
1st Cavalry Brigade at Fort Bliss. In January 1942, Harkins was assigned to the
2nd Armored Division at
Fort Benning, serving again under Patton, who was the division commander. In August 1942, Harkins became deputy chief of staff of Patton's Western Task Force, which was preparing for the
invasion of North Africa. He took part in the assault landing at Fedhala Beach on November 8. Harkins followed Patton when Patton became commander of the
Seventh Army. As deputy chief of staff, Harkins played a major role in planning the
Allied invasion of Sicily and in July 1943 he took part in the initial landings and combat at
Gela. Harkins was then named deputy chief of staff for
Third Army, serving under Patton and chief of staff General
Hobart R. Gay. While in that capacity, Harkins earned the nickname "Ramrod" for his determination to fulfill Patton's desire to always keep Third Army moving during combat in France. When asked by a fellow officer who asked him "how the devil our G.I.s can remain so cheerful at the front under these frightful conditions?" Harkins is said to have replied, "Well the Old Man knows that as long as they are winning and moving forward they will remain happy and their morale will be high". Harkins was present with Patton at the famous command and staff meeting called by General
Dwight D. Eisenhower to discuss the Allied response to the German attack in the
Ardennes which became known as the
Battle of the Bulge, in which Patton promised that Third Army could be ready to disengage his troops from their current eastward attack and move north approximately to
counter-attack in three days. This maneuver seemed impossible to those who were present, but was successfully executed once Patton received the go-ahead. Harkins remained in Germany after the war and took part in the
occupation of
Bavaria, transferring to
Fifteenth Army when Patton was assigned as commander of that unit. Harkins escorted Mrs. Patton back to the United States following Patton's death in December 1945.
West Point cheating scandal From 1946 to 1951, Harkins served as deputy
Commandant of Cadets at West Point and then as commandant. On 2 April 1951, he was informed by a
first class cadet that a classmate had told him that a group of cadets, mainly among the football team, were involved in an academic cheating ring. Harkins had made it plain that he felt that the nationally ranked football team was not in line with his vision of the USMA. In a controversial decision, he asked cadets to gather information about the cheating. A formal inquiry was held and ninety cadets were dismissed from the academy. Some had not participated in the cheating, but knew of it and had not reported it, which was considered a breach of the
Cadet Honor Code ("A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do"). The head coach for Army at that time,
Earl "Red" Blaik, felt that Harkins was "a black and white man with no shades of gray" and accused him of bias. Blaik's son was one of the cadets who knew of the cheating, but had not acted.
Controversy At the beginning of his command of MACV, Harkins and his staff had repeatedly expressed optimism about the course of the war. Members of the U.S. press nicknamed him "General Blimp" (after the cartoon character
Colonel Blimp) because of their belief that he inflated the success of U.S. and South Vietnamese military activities. As violence continued to escalate, many reporters began to perceive that what they were seeing in the field and being told confidentially by officers such as
Lieutenant Colonel John Paul Vann did not match the information released by Harkins and his staff and they concluded that Harkins was being misinformed by his staff or untruthful. The
Battle of Ap Bac in particular seriously affected many of the reporters' view of Harkins' credibility. When details of the battle emerged that differed from the Army's official version, it became a very serious matter, and press reports of it embarrassed the
Kennedy administration. Harkins was described by
Neil Sheehan as an "American General with a swagger stick and cigarette holder...who would not deign to soil his suntans and street shoes in a rice paddy to find out what was going on was prattling about having trapped the
Viet Cong". ("Suntans" was the nickname for the Army's khaki-colored tropical uniform.)
New York Times Vietnam correspondent
David Halberstam became so angry with Harkins he refused to shake his hand at a Fourth of July celebration, hosted at the
US Embassy, Saigon. When the hosts called for a toast to Harkins, Halberstam shouted "Paul D. Harkins should be court-martialed and shot!", Moyar writes that others, such as
John Mecklin (then on leave from
Time as Public Affairs officer for the US embassy) observed Harkins living a "Spartan" life in Saigon and traveling "daily" by small plane around the country to gather and evaluate information from South Vietnamese and American troops. Moyar observes that, while Harkins was not a "creative or brilliant strategist", he was a "superb motivational and technical coach, which was what the situation most demanded".
Time magazine correspondent
Lee Griggs and Mecklin parodied the general in song at one time for saying the war was "well in hand". Sung to the tune of the Christian hymn "
Jesus Loves Me", the verse went: We are winning, this I know, General Harkins tells me so. In the mountains, things are rough, In the Delta, mighty tough, But the V.C. will soon go, General Harkins tells me so. Griggs recalls the General overheard this and "did not smile". As he described in a later interview with historian Michael MacLear, when General
William Westmoreland replaced Harkins in 1964, Westmoreland recalled that he got varying readings on the situation from Harkins, whose favorite poet was
Kipling; when veering from optimism to pessimism Harkins would "constantly" quote a version of line from a Kipling poem for him: The end of the fight is a tombstone white With the name of the late deceased. And the epitaph drear, a fool lies here Who tried to hustle the East. Said Westmoreland: "I'm very fond of Kipling because he's a soldier's poet," but he confessed, "I didn't take it quite to heart." The reason given by MacLear being that neither Kipling nor even
MacArthur – no one in the history of war – had ever known the mobility and firepower that Westmoreland had been promised by
Secretary of Defense McNamara, and was shortly to command. In April 1964 Johnson had rejected junta leader General
Nguyễn Khánh's request to allow Harkins to stay on as MACV chief. The following month Johnson announced that Harkins would be returning to the United States before his tenure was up. Harkins left Saigon for Washington, D.C., on 20 June 1964. After receiving a medal from the president, he retired to obscurity. As had occurred with former MAAG chief
Lionel C. McGarr, whom Washington officials had ignored when he returned to the United States in 1962, McNamara had no desire to consult with Harkins, whom he felt had failed. When Harkins left in June 1964, there were between 11,200 and 16,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam. Johnson raised the levels to 500,000 men under Westmoreland by 1968. ==Retirement==