Obama restores rank of disgraced Vietnam general WASHINGTON – More than 30 years after his death, an Air Force general has been exonerated of charges that he violated presidential restrictions on aerial bombing during the Vietnam War and that he ordered the falsification of records to conceal the missions.
John D. Lavelle was forced to retire in April 1972 at the rank of major general — two stars below the rank he held as commander of air operations in Vietnam — after being relieved of duty for ordering unauthorized airstrikes against North Vietnamese military targets.
He maintained his innocence during congressional hearings held after his dismissal.
He died in 1979.
The story took a new twist in 2007 with the publication in Air Force Magazine of an article by a retired Air Force general, Aloysius Casey, and his son, Patrick Casey. They used declassified documents and transcripts of President Richard Nixon's Oval Office audio tapes to show that Nixon had secretly authorized more aggressive bombing in North Vietnam in February 1972.
The Caseys also wrote that such attacks had been authorized in late 1971 and early 1972 by top U.S. officers, including Adm. Thomas H. Moorer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Army Gen. Creighton T. Abrams, the overall U.S. military commander in South Vietnam.
Lavelle's family petitioned the Air Force to correct his record and restore his rank. It said the decision in 1972 to relieve him of duty was based on "woefully incomplete" evidence...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_us_vietnam_general