Andrew Goodpaster, 90; Army General Served as NATO Commander and Aide to Four Presidents

Gen. Andrew Jackson Goodpaster, who led Army troops in World War II and Vietnam, oversaw NATO and U.S. military operations in Europe in the early 1970s and was called out of retirement to run the military academy at West Point, died Monday. He was 90.

Goodpaster died at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., said the Eisenhower Institute, a think tank where the native of Granite City, Ill., had served as a senior fellow.

Goodpaster commanded troops in North Africa and Italy during World War II.

After various postings in the United States and Europe, he was sent to Vietnam in July 1968 as deputy commander of U.S. forces. A year later, he was assigned to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters in Brussels as supreme allied commander for Europe, responsible for military operations there and in the Middle East. He also commanded U.S. forces in Europe.

He also served at various times as an aide to presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon.

Goodpaster retired in December 1974 and became a senior fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. He also taught at the Citadel, South Carolina’s military college in Charleston, and wrote the book “For the Common Defense.”

President Carter recalled the four-star general to active duty in June 1977 to become the 51st superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., where he had earned a bachelor’s degree in 1939. Goodpaster had to relinquish a star to take the three-star position.

He took charge of the academy after a serious cheating scandal had brought into question the academy’s honor code. Goodpaster’s reputation as one of the Army’s most intellectual generals helped him modify the cadet-administered honor code, add more humanities classes to the curriculum and change training from hazing and personal abuse modes to “positive leadership.”

Goodpaster also oversaw the continuing integration of women, who were first admitted to the academy the year before his arrival. He retired again in 1981.

Among his decorations are a Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor; a Distinguished Service Cross; a Purple Heart; a Silver Star; and distinguished service medals from the Army, Navy and Air Force.

In addition to his West Point education, he had a master’s degree in engineering and a doctorate in international relations from Princeton.

Goodpaster is survived by his wife, Dorothy; two daughters, Susan and Anne; and seven grandchildren.