BACKGROUND AND PERSPECTIVE ON 'THE BLAIK STATUE LETTER' DATED 20 MAY 2003, TO LTG
WILLIAM J. LENNOX, JR., SUPERINTENDENT OF THE UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY
The events I became involved in that caused the writing of the foregoing letter occurred initially at the urging of members of the West Point class of 1953, on 5 May 2003, when the class was approaching its 50th reunion and in March had in inadvertently discovered the Blaik statue.
At the time of the discovery by members of the class of 1953, Lieutenant General William J. Lennox, Jr., was Superintendent of the Academy. General Lennox's immediate predecessor was Lieutenant General Daniel P. Christman. The Chairman of the Association of Graduates (AOG) was Mr. Thomas P. Dyer III, class of 1967, and his predecessor was Mr. John A. Hammack, class of 1949.
The statue of Army's legendary head football coach, Earl H. 'Red' Blaik, class of 1920, without a plaque surrounding its pedestal, was already in place in the Kimsey Center, when members of the class learned of the statue, the bronze plaque that would be wrapped around the statue's pedestal and the intent to put all of Coach Blaik's lettermen's names on the plaque, including those discharged under less than honorable conditions in 1951 for cheating in academics. The statue, a $300,000 gift to the Academy, intended to honor Coach Blaik, and his achievements in 18 years of service at West Point, would become a 2003 flashpoint, which nearly became another national scandal, though he had died in 1989.
The 1951 cheating incident, as it would be formally labeled by the Army and the Academy, had been an unprecedented and explosively controversial occurrence in Academy history that literally became a national scandal. The incident, announced to the press on Friday, 3 August 1951, one month after our new Plebe class arrived to enter 'Beast Barracks,' resulted in an avalanche of adverse nation-wide press coverage and had triggered an internal investigation at the end of the previous May, by a board of three Academy graduates and officers on active duty at West Point, all World War II veterans, who brought findings of guilty for 94 cadets, with 22 of the 94 also found guilty of false swearing. After a review of all cases by a second board of officers and the Army's Judge Advocate General, 83 cadets total from the classes of 1952 and 1953, including 37 then-still-active or former Army football players, were given less than honorable discharges, officially called 'general discharges,' under the Articles of War still in effect at that time. The incident had devastating and demoralizing effects on the Academy and its cadets, and Army football, when all but two returning 1951 Army varsity lettermen were discharged from a previously, highly-and-nationally-respected team considered by sports writers to be in contention for another mythical national championship the fall of that year.
The $300,000 value of the gift, and its concept, resulted in General Christman's decision, prior to 2003, to pursue approval of the gift, which, under Academy policy, required him to obtain Chief of Staff and Secretary of the Army approval before accepting the contribution.
What occurred when the statue was found in March 2003, is a clear illustration and reflection of the controversy stirred in 1951 and the powerful emotions that echoed down through the intervening 52 years regarding the West Point honor code and system, and the meanings the word honor engenders in West Point's graduates.
As a result of the discovery of the Blaik statue, and its origin and concept, the 1953 class vice president, Edward P. Andrews, eventually led a concentrated and growing e-mail and letter-writing campaign against the project, a campaign that spread into many downstream classes and drew intense and sometimes-heated e-mails, letters and phone calls to General Lennox, who had had the responsibility for the project's final approval passed to him for action when General Christman retired.
Ed Andrews and about 79-80 men from several classes had drafted and were circulating an e-mail to General Lennox asking the project be stopped. The e-mail included a quotation from my first book, A Return to Glory, a quotation they were unsure about, and Ed was kind enough to ask on 5 May 2003 that I approve its use in their e-mailed letter, as well as review it for accuracy. The quotation did need a slight correction, I adjusted the quotation and returned it to him, granting permission to use it in their e-mailed letter. He then asked me to join in signing the letter, and I did. From that point forward I became evermore deeply involved in the controversy.
The e-mails, letters and phone calls that followed didn't stop General Lennox. He was obligated to continue the project because General Christman, and Mr. Jack Hammack, the former recently retired AOG CEO, and just-announced 2003 Distinguished Graduate Award recipient, and other AOG officers had, without public knowledge of its existence, signed or coordinated on a contract with the fund raisers for the statue, a group that included Bob Blaik, the coach's son, and others.
I didn't realize it at the time, but General Lennox, who knew of the contract, faced not only two problems, but four. If he stopped the statue's completion because of the plaque, a breach of contract was in the offing. What's more he would have to go up the Army chain of command and explain why the decision to place the statue at West Point had to be reversed, since it already had been approved in concept by the Chief of Staff and Secretary of the Army, and had to be approved a second time, perhaps, only at West Point, once the product could be examined in final detail.
Facts I was able to find suggested that General Lennox had probably gone forward for final approval - if it was required, overriding the faculty's Museum, Historical and Memorialization Committee (MHM) recommendation against approval. The chairman of the MHM at that time was the Professor and Head of the History Department, Colonel Lance Betros, class of 1977. Not only that, the fund raisers, were apparently falling short of the $300,000 needed, and, in the period 5-20 May a 1951 graduate and retired former attorney, Seldon P. Graham, Jr., informed me in a series of e-mail exchanges that someone, whose name he couldn't reveal, had taken $150,000 from a deceased classmate's estate to help fund the Blaik statue. (As further investigation would later reveal, that amount was in error, 50% overstated.)
I also learned that one of the fund raising techniques used was the promise of a miniature Blaik statuette given to each contributor of $7,500 or more to the project, a technique that proved ineffective in attempting to pay for the statue.
As to the deceased graduate from Sel Graham's class, he had willed his estate's funds to the Academy's benefit. Sel, who had personal and professional knowledge of the estate, but was not an executor, but rather was an active member and pro-bono legal advisor for the AOG, further explained he believed the deceased graduate, if he were still living, would not have approved of the funds' withdrawal to help pay for the statue.
The growing resistance to the Blaik statue as conceived at that time was directly attributable to Ed Andrews and his 1953 classmates' intense efforts to cause the reversal of General Lennox's decision. As examples, Bert E. Tucker, class of 1956, came on line 8 May and stated voluntarily he would publicize the names of the men discharged in 1951 if the decision were not reversed. Peter Joel Vann, also class of 1956, one of Army's great quarterbacks (now deceased), a 1954 second team All-American on Army's football team, and at that time a candidate for West Point's Athletic Hall of Fame, e-mailed General Lennox, stating he wanted his name removed from the lettermen's plaque if the present decision stood. A growing chorus of voices, including retired senior Army of officers who were Academy graduates were stating their opposition to General Lennox's decision.
From 5 May forward, after signing Ed Andrews' letter to General Lennox I began to follow the unfolding events with increasing interest and deepening concern. As a graduate I had a discomforting feeling that well-known principles involving fiduciary responsibilities had been seriously compromised. As a former base commander and tactical fighter wing and tactical air warfare center vice commander in the Air Force, with additional duties of inspector general at base level on two major air force installations, I was well familiar with Department of Defense policies on gifts to military organizations and installations from private individuals and corporations. I had also obtained and carefully reviewed copies of relevant Academy regulations and procedures pertaining to gifts to the Academy, fully recognizing the Academy is a national institution of higher learning for which there are differing governing regulations and laws in matters of fund raising.
I also became aware that the controversy spawned by the proposed lettermen's plaque on the Blaik statue, had made at least one other senior general officer and Academy graduate and AOG Trustee from the class of 1944, express his intent to let his son take the issue to the New York Times, where his son was employed, if General Lennox didn't reverse his decision. As events continued to unfold, it became clear that General Lennox had decided to press ahead in spite of the fact that public exposure of what was planned could well be disastrously explosive.
An alternative proposal was circulating among graduates suggesting there be no names on the pedestal's bronze plaque, that in their place, agreed to information should be placed on the plaque describing Coach Blaik's numerous contributions to Army athletics, Academy football, the Academy, the Army and the nation - and that other graduates would volunteer to pay the cost to make the changes. It was a concept I personally supported and advocated as well. There were many who admired Coach Blaik, wanted him honored with the statue, but were strongly or unalterably opposed to letting the discharged cadets be honored with their names on the bronze plaque and statue intended to honor Coach Blaik at West Point.
In hindsight, it became clear that such a proposal would not have been accepted by the Academy, the AOG, and especially the gift donors because of the contract signed with the group offering the gift.
On or about 10 May 2003, I began drafting the foregoing letter to General Lennox, intending to copy Mr. Dyer, the AOG CEO, and mail it, if events convinced me it had to be mailed.
By 20 May, the letter's date, I knew General Lennox had already briefed the Board of Trustees telling them he was going ahead with the statue, and he had done the same at the annual AOG leadership conference on or about 17 May. When I learned of the briefing to the leadership conference, I accelerated the time spent on the letter, which quickly mounted toward more than 24 hours, most of it the final five to seven days, before it was mailed on Tuesday 27 May.
During the period the letter was being drafted I decided to use it to approach General Lennox directly, as would a staff officer on active duty, asking for a one-on-one hearing, trying to warn him of serious trouble ahead if he didn't reverse course. When I learned he had briefed the leadership conference intending to press ahead, I decided I had to send the letter to his quarters, not wanting his staff to have first access to the letter or its contents, for fear they wouldn't let him see it until they 'staffed it' to recommend to him how to respond, or instead drafted a response for him.
It was also at that point I decided the letter wasn't good enough on its own merits because it was too easy to bury along with all the rest of the letters, e-mails and phone calls which had not been persuasive, so decided it had to be made public among Academy graduates almost simultaneously - on the AOG net and to as many class nets and individuals I knew, as possible, and so informed John Calabro '68, Vice President for Alumni Support in the AOG, the morning of 30 May. (Ironically, John, since deceased, was a former English instructor at the Academy, and was on the Bicentennial Planning Group that unanimously approved the manuscript for A Return to Glory as a Bicentennial Book in February 2000.) John called me on the phone and attempted to talk me out of releasing the letter on the internet. I replied, 'Let me think it over and I'll call you back.' After thinking over his request for a few minutes, I called him back and said I was sending it out in three parts to as many graduates as I could.
The same day, Friday the 30th, about 1:30 in the afternoon Pacific time, Ronnie, my wife, had gone to the grocery store and I was home on the computer, when the phone rang. It was Mr. Jack Hammack. I believed he was calling from Dallas, TX, but could have been wrong, as I never asked him. I'd never met him personally so was more than surprised when he called. After introducing himself and pausing for a moment, his opening words were, 'You know, you told an untruth about me.' I stammered a bit because he caught me off guard and was uncertain what he was talking about. In response I asked 'What do you mean I told an untruth about you?' His reply, 'You know, in the last few paragraphs of your letter to General Lennox."
Then I realized what he was alleging. My reply was straightforward. 'Mr. Hammack, that's not true, because when I wrote that letter, I didn't know who pulled that money from the estate. But you have just solved the problem for me. Thank you very much. Reread the letter and you will see clearly. When I wrote that letter, I did not know who had taken the money from the estate.' He had quite literally disclosed who had taken the $100,000 from the estate, and immediately recognized he had blundered. We spoke for about 45 minutes.
The rest of the conversation did not go well, except for brief moments when one of us managed to interject some humor, and laugher relieved the tension. At one point we got into a shouting match about some supposed factual information the Academy believed to be true about the cheating incident in 1951, and I told him rather profanely, 'West Point doesn't know what the (blank) they're taking about.' His reply, a seeming laugh, then, 'You know, we could be [or could have been] friends.' Matters began to cool down a bit, but the real shocker came shortly thereafter, at the last of the phone conversation, when after a pause he said, 'I want to ask you a question.' Another pause. 'Will you withdraw your letter?' Without hesitation my answer came, an abrupt, emphatic and blunt, 'No!' That quickly ended the conversation on a stunning note. The gall and arrogance exhibited by the question, following his opening accusatory remarks and the realization he had given himself away with a mind-numbing blunder left me filled with questions I never asked him.
Was the request to withdraw the letter simply for Mr. Hammack's sake? Or did he talk with the AOG officers, or maybe even General Lennox? I don't know and will never know for certain. My suspicion is it was for him only, or maybe for him and the AOG officers, who perhaps misread the letter also and believed they could intimidate me into withdrawing the letter because I'd 'told an untruth' about Mr. Hammack and the $150,000 instead of the $100,000 he actually took from the estate, an act to which the AOG officers apparently acquiesced.
Over the weekend I was totally immersed in transmitting the letter via e-mails and replying to e-mails that began arriving, some asking permission to forward copies to specific individuals, including many retired senior officers and graduates. I responded affirmatively to all such requests.
The following Monday, 2 June, the phone started ringing and the volume of e-mails increased. Several senior Army officers, some I had met while a student at the Army War College in 1972-73, called to extend their compliments for what the letter had said. We also received at least one angry phone call from a graduate - apparently - who didn't identify himself. He had some unkind words to first say to Ronnie, then let me know the wrong I had done. The relentless pace of e-mails and phone calls continued all week, and I made certain I answered every e-mail and answered callers' requests and comments.
On 5 June, John Calabro called back to tell me I had an error in an e-mail I'd sent or forwarded, that contrary to what my e-mail said, that '...Tom Dyer, the AOG CEO, didn't go on the West Point Forum pleading for support of General Lennox, that he wouldn't do that...' I apologized and conceded I should have called Mr. Dyer to confirm the accuracy of the retransmitted remark.
A typical day in all that followed, was 8 June when I answered 21 e-mails regarding the letter to General Lennox and related subjects. On 9 June 12 e-mails were sent in response to comments or questions, including responses to Bill Golden, class of 1957 and John Blanco, class of 1974.
At some point during this period, I received either a phone call or an e-mail from the wife of a 1950 graduate living in the Washington, DC area, naming an AOG staff member, Morris J. Herbert, class of 1950, who told her in an e-mail that AOG officers had suggested Mr. Hammack call me on Friday, 30 May, after reading the letter's copy addressed to Mr. Dyer.
On Tuesday, 10 June, I learned from a retired senior general officer via e-mail that the AOG had withdrawn their proffer to the group offering the gift, that the lettermen's names would not be on the plaque. As the retired officer put it, 'We've won round one.' But it was also a clear indication, General Lennox had reversed his decision regarding placement of the statue at West Point with the lettermen's names on the plaque. The same day, I received a call informing me that Bill Taylor, class of 1970 and an Academy trustee, and his wife were coming into Las Vegas the next day, and he wanted to meet me, that he had some questions. I spent two hours preparing a paper to give him, and Ronnie and I left for the Monte Carlo Casino the next morning at 6:10 a.m. We conversed for 2 ¾ hours, answering numerous questions.
The flow of e-mails, calls and letters didn't slow in the next seven days. Then on Thursday, 19 June, I received an e-mail query from Mr. Wayne Hall, a reporter for the Newburgh Times Herald-Record newspaper. Mr. Hall had acquired a copy of the letter to General Lennox, and he wanted to know if I had any comments about the letter. His unexpected query surprised me, but the wording clearly indicated he was attempting to gather additional information. My reply was, 'I have nothing further to add. The letter speaks for itself.' Within thirty minutes I forwarded a summary of the press contact and Mr. Hall's query and my reply to him, to the Academy's Public Affairs Officer and John Calabro at the AOG.
On Monday, 23 June, Mr. Hall's story broke in the Newburgh paper, but the matter didn't end there. Someone sent me a copy of the article, and I learned Mr. Hall had literally 'put words in my mouth' in his story, clearly in contradiction to what I had said to him. One or two days later, in a phone call to me that I didn't record in my written records, Mr. Hall wanted to know who had taken the money from the deceased graduate's estate. In response I reminded him forcefully and angrily he had written words I never said in his first piece, and that under no circumstances would I reply to any questions from him or anyone else from the press, under such circumstances, that he was not to be trusted. He apologized, in effect blaming his editor because the editor '...needed some words from you for the piece.' Thus the work associated with the letter to General Lennox, came slowly to a close.
I was to learn later that, as a result of General Lennox's reversal of his decision, the fund-raisers threatened to sue the AOG for breach of contract, but eventually backed away. The statue, presumably with the lettermen's plaque, was eventually removed from the Kimsey Center at West Point, and now resides at the National Collegiate Football Hall of Fame in South Bend, Indiana, where Coach Earl 'Red' Blaik had already been enshrined years earlier.
The same year, in the fall of 2003, reforms were undertaken at the AOG to put its governance on a corporate footing, complete with an elected Board of Directors and officers, as well as advisors, doing away with the old appointed Trustee arrangement, which was based fundamentally on who gave the larger sums of money to the AOG, with AOG officers nominated by and voted in by the appointed Trustees, and was the system that eventually spawned the corrupt practices that this incident evidenced. The woman who led that reform effort is the present Vice Chairman of the AOG, Ellen W. Houlihan, class of 1982.
I had learned clearly that the letter to General Lennox, finally stopped the Blaik Lettermen's Plaque, and the statue, but it's pure supposition for me to conclude that it also caused the reforms in the AOG. Perhaps it did, but there is no way either General Lennox or the AOG Chairman was going to disclose the contents of the letter to anyone working the governance problem. General Lennox did call me very briefly one day during his deliberations after the letter arrived at the end of May, to ask how many names on the proposed plaque would be men discharged for honor violations in 1951. Answer: 23. A very brief conversation.
As a matter of additional interest, those 23 names had been in bronze on the walls of the old gymnasium at West Point for years, and when the old gym was completely remodeled and became the new Arvin Gym, it's my understanding the names remained in place.
On 1 November 2013, I established contact with Ellen Houlihan through the AOG, and sent her an e-mailed copy of the 20 May 2003 letter, and asked if she had ever seen or heard of the letter. In reality, I look back and realize I was trying to selfishly salve some of the bruises my wife and I took in the whole 2003 affair, plus the blowback from the 'Code Breakers' movie in 2005, which was also based on the book, A Return to Glory. I wanted to feel I'd caused the AOG reforms, too. She hasn't answered and probably never will. It's unlikely she ever saw or heard of the letter.
Respectfully submitted,
William D. 'Bill' McWilliams, III, USAF (ret),
West Point Class of 1955
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