Col. Robert Rheault died on Oct 16 at the age of 87. His relationship to the fictional Col. Kurtz in the film Apocalypse Now is explained in this New York Times obituary:
‘John Milius, who wrote the screenplay for Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 Vietnam War film, “Apocalypse Now,” told The Times in 1977 that he had based the Marlon Brando character of Walter Kurtz, the mysterious Green Beret colonel who conducts an unauthorized secret war in Cambodia, on both the fictional Kurtz of Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” and the real-life Colonel Rheault.
Colonel Rheault was “a great man,” Mr. Milius said, adding, “Men like Rheault could’ve helped us win the war.”'
Col. Rheault was a fascinating man because of the moral conundrum he created with his straightforward, unhypocritical approach to the Vietnam War.
‘When the Army charged the Green Beret commander, Col. Robert Rheault, and six of his officers with murder and conspiracy on July 21, 1969, in the secret execution of a Vietnamese spy suspect, it caused consternation on both sides of the growing American divide over the war in Vietnam.
Hawks condemned the charges for what they saw as a Catch-22 military absurdity: the prosecution of front-line troops for killing the enemy.
Opponents of the war portrayed it as proof of American involvement in a secret campaign of terror and assassination, paralleling the combat seen nightly on television.’
Was Rheault some kind of a Lt. Calley-style loser?
‘Colonel Rheault, the son of a prominent Boston banking family, was a rising star in the Berets. Widely thought to be on the cusp of promotion to general at the time of his arrest, he had entered West Point after graduating from Phillips Exeter Academy, received a Bronze Star in Korea, earned advanced degrees in international relations and worked for the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon before serving his first tour of duty in Vietnam as a Green Beret officer.’
Rheault didn’t behave impulsively or in the heat of the moment. The assassination was the result of an informed, rational decision designed to help the war effort and bring about victory. If you have read anything at all about the history of SOG in Cambodia you know that the locals who the Special Forces worked with included many double agents.
Where are my sympathies, with the war realists, or the war moralists? Honestly, I can’t decide. I can see both sides of the moral question he raised. On the one hand, I naturally sympathise with those who aren’t deluded by pretty lies and choose to operate in the real world with their eyes wide open. On the other, there have to be legal standards or your military will degenerate into a gang of cut-throats. Which is what makes Col. Rheault a fascinating character.
As I have said before, biographical films should be made about some of the characters in Apocalypse Now who are based on real people, such as Kurtz, the Harlequin and Col. KiIlgore. These people are too interesting to be remembered by their caricature.
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