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The Detroit news:
Carlisle, Pa. — Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson’s published account of having dinner with a top commander in the Vietnam War after marching in a Memorial Day parade in 1969 as a high school ROTC cadet in Detroit does not match historical records.
In Carson’s 1990 best-selling autobiography, “Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story,” the neurosurgeon tells of being offered a scholarship to West Point as a high school senior sometime after having dinner with the U.S. Army’s chief of staff, Gen. William Westmoreland, on Memorial Day 1969.
But Westmoreland’s personal schedule shows the general was not in Detroit on Memorial Day or during the days preceding and following the holiday. His schedule says he was in and around Washington, D.C., that weekend, according to Army archives The Detroit News reviewed Friday.
Carson’s compelling life story of escaping poverty in Detroit to become a world-renowned pediatric neurosurgeon is facing increased scrutiny as new polls show him at the top of the GOP presidential candidate field. It also comes a few days before Tuesday’s Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee.
Carson acknowledged Friday he never sought admission to West Point and was informally offered a scholarship that he later didn’t pursue.
“I interpreted it as an offer,” Carson said Friday night during a televised press conference from Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. “... I never said I received a full scholarship.”
In his autobiography, which was the basis of a movie about Carson’s life, Carson wrote that the dinner with Westmoreland took place after he “marched at the head of the Memorial Day parade.”
“I felt so proud, my chest bursting with ribbons and braids of every kind,” said Carson, who was a top ROTC cadet at Detroit’s former Southwestern High School.
Westmoreland’s Memorial Day schedule on May 30, 1969, indicates he was in Washington. The schedule says Westmoreland had a morning meeting with national security adviser Henry Kissinger, laid a wreath at an 11 a.m. memorial service in Arlington National Cemetery and had a 5 p.m. “boat ride on the Potomac.”
The Detroit News on Friday reviewed Westmoreland’s schedule for the dates in question among his official papers housed at the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center in Carlisle, Pa.
The Army records and Detroit News archival records show Westmoreland was in Detroit on Feb. 18, 1969, for a dinner honoring a Vietnam War veteran. The banquet was for Congressional Medal of Honor winner Dwight Johnson, a Detroit African-American who risked his life “beyond the call of duty,” according to a website about black participation in the Vietnam War.
Carson spokesman Doug Watts could not immediately explain the discrepancies in Carson’s published account of meeting Westmoreland on Memorial Day 1969 and the general being in Washington that day.
“Dr. Carson was the top ROTC student in the city of Detroit,” Watts said in an email to The News. “In that role he was invited to meet General Westmoreland. He believes it was at a banquet. He can’t remember with specificity their brief conversation but it centered around Dr. Carson’s performance as ROTC City Executive Officer.”
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