Maxwell Davenport Taylor
General, U.S. Army

Maxwell Davenport Taylor was born on 26 August 1901 in Keytesville, MO. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in the Class of 1922.

World War II

Taylor's rise to the highest echelons of the U.S. government began under the tutelage of General Matthew B. Ridgway in the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division when Ridgway commanded the division in the early part of World War II.

In 1943, Taylor's diplomatic and language skills resulted in his being sent on a secret mission to Rome to coordinate an 82nd air drop with Italian forces. General Dwight D. Eisenhower would later say of Taylor "the risks he ran were greater than I asked any other agent or emissary to take during the war." Hundreds of miles behind the front lines of battle, Taylor was forced by rules of engagement to wear his American military uniform, so that if captured he could not legally be shot as a spy. He met with the new Italian Prime Minister, Marshal Pietro Badoglio, and general Carboni. The air drop near Rome to capture the city was called off at the last minute, when Taylor realized that it was too late. Large German forces were already moving in to cover the intended drop zones. Transport planes were already in the air when Taylor's message canceled the drop, preventing what would have been a 'suicide mission.' His efforts behind enemy lines got Taylor noticed at the highest levels of the Allied command.

After the campaigns in the Mediterranean, Taylor was assigned to command the 101st Airborne Division, which was training in England, after the 101st's first commander, Major General Bill Lee, suffered a heart attack.

On D-Day , 6 June 1944, Taylor jumped into Normandy with his men. He was the first Allied general to land in France on D-Day. He commanded the 101st Airborne Division for the rest of the war. He was involved in Operation Market Garden in The Netherlands, but missed out leading the division during its most famous conflict, the Battle of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge. That was because he was attending a staff conference in the U.S. The Division Artillery commander, Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe (known for his reply of "Nuts" to the German commander who demanded he surrender) commanded in his absence. Some of the paratroopers resented Taylor for this later. General Taylor called the defense of Bastogne the 101st Airborne Division's "finest hour" of the war and stated that his absence there was one of his greatest disappointments in World War II.

Post-World War II

From 1945 to 1949 Taylor was superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy. In 1947, he drafted the first official Honor Code publication marking the beginning of the written "Cadet Honor Code" at West Point. Afterwards, he was the commander of allied troops in Berlin from 1949 to 1951.

In 1953, he was sent to the Korean War. From 1955 to 1959, he was the Army Chief of Staff, succeeding his former mentor, Matthew B. Ridgway. During his tenure as Army Chief of Staff, Taylor attempted to guide the service into the age of nuclear weapons by restructuring the infantry division. (Observers such as Colonel David Hackworth have written that the effort gutted the role of U.S. Army company and field grade officers, rendering it unable to adapt to the dynamics of combat in Vietnam.)

During 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered General Taylor to deploy 1,000 troops from the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock, AR, to enforce Federal court orders to desegregate Central High School during the Little Rock Crisis.

As Army Chief of Staff, Taylor was an outspoken critic of the Eisenhower Administration's "New Look" defense policy, which he viewed as dangerously over-reliant on nuclear arms and neglectful of conventional forces; he also criticized the inadequacies of the Joint Chiefs of Staff system. Frustrated with the administration's failure to heed his arguments, General Taylor retired from active service in July 1959.

He then campaigned publicly against the "New Look," culminating in the publication in January 1960 of a highly critical book entitled "The Uncertain Trumpet."

Return to Duty

As the 1960 presidential campaign unfolded, Democratic nominee John F. Kennedy criticized Eisenhower's defense policy and championed a muscular "flexible response" policy intentionally aligned with Taylor's views as described in "The Uncertain Trumpet." After the April 1961 failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion, Kennedy, who felt the Joint Chiefs of Staff had failed to provide him with satisfactory military advice, appointed Taylor to head a task force to investigate the failure of the invasion.

Both President Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, had immense regard for Taylor, whom they saw as a man of unquestionable integrity, sincerity, intelligence, and diplomacy. The Cuba Study Group met for six weeks from April to May 1961 to perform an "autopsy" on the disastrous events surrounding the Bay of Pigs Invasion. In the course of their work together, Taylor developed a deep regard and a personal affection for Robert F. Kennedy, a friendship that was wholly mutual and which remained firm until Kennedy's assassination in 1968.

Taylor spoke of Robert Kennedy glowingly: "He is always on the lookout for a 'snow job,' impatient with evasion and imprecision, and relentless in his determination to get at the truth." Robert Kennedy named one of his sons Matthew Maxwell Taylor Kennedy (better known as an adult as "Max").

Shortly after the investigation concluded, the Kennedys' warm feelings for Taylor and the President's lack of confidence in the Joint Chiefs of Staff led John Kennedy to recall Taylor to active duty and install him in the newly created post of Military Representative to the President. His close personal relationship with the President, and White House access, effectively made Taylor the President's primary military adviser, cutting out the Joint Chiefs. On 1 October 1962, Kennedy ended this uncomfortable arrangement by appointing Taylor as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a position in which he served until 1964.

The Vietnam War

Taylor was of crucial importance during the first weeks and months of the Vietnam War. Although President Kennedy had initially told Taylor that "the independence of South Vietnam rests with the people and government of that country," Taylor was soon to recommend that 8,000 American combat troops be sent to the region at once. After making his report to the Cabinet and the Chiefs of Staff, Taylor was to reflect on the decision to send troops to South Vietnam: "I don't recall anyone who was strongly against, except one man, and that was the President. The President just didn't want to be convinced that this was the right thing to do.... It was really the President's personal conviction that U.S. ground troops shouldn't go in."

Taylor opposed the 1963 South Vietnamese coup that overthrew and killed President Ngo Dinh Diem.

A series of short-lived juntas followed and, after Taylor was made ambassador in 1964, he frequently clashed with General Nguyen Khanh and helped to engineer his removal, having supported Khanh's deposal of General Duong Van Minh.

Criticisms of Taylor

Taylor received fierce criticism in Major (now Brigadier General) H.R. McMaster's book Dereliction of Duty. Specifically, General Taylor was accused of intentionally misrepresenting the views of the Joint Chiefs to Secretary of Defense McNamara, and cutting the Joint Chiefs out of the decision-making process.

The Joint Chiefs felt that it was their duty to offer unqualified assessments and recommendations on military matters. But General Taylor was of the firm belief that the Chairman should not only support the President's decisions but also be a true believer in them. This discrepancy manifested itself during the early planning phases of the war, while it was still being decided what the nature of American involvement should be. McNamara and the civilians of the Office of the Secretary of Defense were firmly behind the idea of graduated pressure; to escalate pressure slowly against North Vietnam in order to demonstrate U.S. resolve. The Joint Chiefs, however, strenuously disagreed with this and believed that if the US got involved further in Vietnam, it should be with the clear intention of winning through the use of overwhelming force. McMaster contends that using a variety of political maneuvering, including liberal use of outright deception, Gen. Taylor succeeded in keeping the Joint Chiefs' opinions away from the President and helped set the stage for McNamara to begin to systematically dominate the U.S. decision-making process on Vietnam.

Second Retirement

Taylor again retired and became Ambassador to South Vietnam from 1964 to 1965, succeeding Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. He was Special Consultant to the President and Chairman of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (1965-1969) and President of the Institute for Defense Analyses (1966-1969).

Medals and Awards

Distinguished Service Cross
Distinguished Service Medal
Silver Star Medal
Legion of Merit
Bronze Star Medal
Purple Heart

Dramatic Portrayals

Taylor was portrayed by Paul Maxwell in A Bridge Too Far; Andrew Duggan in The Missiles of October; and by Bill Smitrovich in Thirteen Days.

Death and Burial

General Maxwell Davenport Taylor died in Washington, DC on 19 April 1987, of ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, VA, in Section 7A, Lot 20, Grid U-24.