Mrs. Kay Griggs on How the Government Works

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Re: Mrs. Kay Griggs on How the Government Works

Postby admin » Wed Jan 03, 2018 6:20 pm

Social Change Expert: Susan Parenti, Ph.D.
by patchadamsspeaks.com
Accessed: 1/3/18

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Susan Parenti is a touring performer, writer, and collaborator with Dr. Patch Adams. She was one of the founding organizers of the School for Designing a Society, a grassroots school for social change in Urbana, IL. The relationship between the School for Designing a Society and the Gesundheit Institute owes much of its existence to Susan.

Susan has authored three books: "The Politics of the Adjective 'Political'", and "'I' and My Mouth and Their Irresistible Life in Language," and "Playing Attention to Language." Susan is currently co-writing a book with Patch Adams called "The Politics of Care."

Susan received her masters and doctorate degree in musical arts (DMA) from the University of Illinois, and her bachelors degree from Northwestern University. After studying for two years in Rome, Italy at the l'Academia di Santa Cecilia she became a composer as a profession.

However, Susan does not only compose music. In collaboration with Herbert Brun, Susan composes in the medium of language and of society. This means that in addition to proposing pieces for chamber ensembles, she also composes schools, projects, and approaches to thinking.

Susan is currently an organizer of the School for Designing a Society in Urbana, Illinois, a two year program where composition is applied to social change. She has been a guest teacher at some of the most progressive schools in the United States and Europe: Evergreen College in Washington, Bard, Bennington, Oberlin, New College in Florida, Virginia Beach, Oklahoma State as well as on the faculty of the University of Illinois, teaching the innovative freshmen "Discovery" course. Susan has taught at Schumacher College in England, and at the Gesammtehochschule in Kassel, Germany.

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-- Patch Adams and Susan Parenti
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Re: Mrs. Kay Griggs on How the Government Works

Postby admin » Wed Jan 03, 2018 6:41 pm

Flat-panel display market prepares to take off
by D. Carney
The Business of Federal Technology, fcw.com
May 10, 1998

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After years on the market fringe, flat-panel displays quickly are becoming an affordable option for PC buyers who are tired of dedicating half their desk space to their monitors.

Until recently, buyers who demanded the small, lightweight screens paid a hefty price. LCD monitors cost 10 times as much as conventional cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors, and they were small, low-resolution devices. But that is no longer the case.

Improved technology has provided desktop flat-panel displays that are the same viewing size as the 15-inch monitors but have a clarity that lets them run at the same resolution as 17-inch desktop monitors.

More importantly, prices of these 14-inch displays have fallen dramatically. The street price recently has slipped to less than $1,000— still considerably more than a conventional monitor, but the difference now is a factor of three, instead of a factor of four or five, as it was not long ago.

"In eight months, prices have dropped 60 percent," said Matthew Red, senior analyst for ARS Inc., an Irving, Texas, research firm. "When you see that kind of price drop, you expect to see the market expand dramatically."

Feds in Front

Federal buyers have led the way in adopting flat-panel displays, joined by medical customers and financial analysts. The military, in particular, appreciates nearly every aspect of the flat panel's advantages over those of CRTs.

For starters, the displays not only do not generate magnetic fields, but they also are not harmed by them, unlike CRTs, which can be damaged by magnets. This is important in submarines because the subs are regularly "degaussed," or demagnetized, to reduce the potential for magnetic detection, he said.

And flat panels are solid-state devices, which are much less fragile than CRTs, so they are better-suited to rough treatment than the old screens. "We have a flat panel that has passed the light hammer-blow test for shock without resilient mounting," said Gary Lufriw, assistant vice president at Science Applications International Corp. "It is the standard for all 688 [Los Angeles]-class attack subs."

"They are used where you have a lot of vibration and impact," said Ron Jarmuth, chief of automation technology and security at the Pentagon. "There is no mechanical thing to get out of alignment," such as the "yoke'' on a CRT, which guides electrons from the emitter to the screen.

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PC Magazine


In mobile applications, the panel weighs dramatically less and uses less space, said Neville Wilkinson, president of Thin Display Technology, a Westford, Mass., integrator. His company developed a flat-panel replacement for computers that used several bulky 21-inch CRTs in Army vehicles. "We've gotten rid of 500 pounds and 10- to 12-cubic feet," Wilkinson said.

"More than 50 percent of the government market last year purchased 17-inch screens," said Bennett Norell, marketing manager for the Information System Products Division for LG Electronics Inc. "When you are talking about those kinds of sizes, you're talking about a lot of heat."

Size certainly is most important for many flat-panel users, especially in the Defense Department. "Right now we use a lot of 19-inch color [CRT] monitors," said Will Fitzgerald, head of hardware design for the Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Command. "The trend is going to be 20-inch LCD color panels," he said. "We have space issues, and in submarines we are going to hide equipment behind them." Fitzgerald said that uninterruptible power supplies are likely to reside behind the panels.

For now, most buyers will opt for the 14-inch size, said Ed Buckingham, an industry analyst with International Data Corp., Framingham, Mass. "You can run 1,024-by-768 [dots per inch] resolution on a 14-inch flat panel," he said. "You still get fairly crisp definition."

SAIC put a 13-inch CRT tactical display in a B-52 bomber and found that it gave the user headaches, Lufriw said. But with a 15-inch flat panel, the user "was able to operate with some comfort," he said.

The ideal solution will be 16-inch flat panels running at 1,280-by-1,024 dpi, he said. "The image world is going to be centered around 1,280-by-1,024 until high-definition TV comes out, so that is what my customers want me to do— especially the tactical customers."

"There is no such thing as too big a flat-panel monitor," said P.J. Johnston, marketing communication manager for Panasonic Computer Peripheral Co., at least for purposes of viewability, if not affordability.

Performance Trade-offs

However, while flat panels have some obvious advantages in some environments, users must make trade-offs.

One aspect of flat-panel technology that makes it more user-friendly is the fact that they do not flicker; CRTs flicker 30 times a second. Instead of refreshing an analog image, flat-panel displays just update the pixels on the screen as they change, which is easier on the eyes. But those pixels do not change as quickly as the phosphors on a CRT, and the lag is noticeable when running full-motion video applications.

Another downside of LCDs is an intolerance for temperature extremes, said Capt. Marc Ohmer, program manager for airborne broadcast intelligence at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass. "What has not improved is their sensitivity to temperature," he said. "If it gets down below 32 degrees they crystallize, and that ruins them; and if it gets too hot, the display blanks out."

A long-standing problem with LCD panels has been the limited viewing angle. If viewed other than straight-on, they can darken or distort colors. In a display that shows green for good and red for bad, having red look green when viewed from the side is unacceptable.

NEC Technologies Inc. has developed a technology called XtraView for some of its displays that widens the viewing angle to 160 degrees. "NEC does have a very good viewing angle," Lufriw said. "But the display sacrifices other attributes for that viewing angle," including a slower response time, which makes it even less suitable for full-motion video applications, he said.

Falling Prices: Deep Impact?

Despite the advances in technology, interest in flat panels for desktop purposes has not taken off yet, according to Randy O'Bruba, manager of the Navy's PC LAN+ contract for Electronic Data Systems Corp.

"For PC LAN+, we currently do not have any demand," he said. "If demand was there, we could very rapidly respond." The Air Force does buy flat panels from EDS on other EDS contracts, however, he said.

But prices are still falling, and the market is waiting to see how customers respond. In particular, vendors believe the new price points finally should increase the potential for business in the civilian agencies.

"Everyone is watching to see what happens when you get under $1,000," said Rhoda Alexander, senior market analyst at Stanford Resources Inc., a San Jose, Calif., consulting firm.

Increased competition among vendors is driving prices down, Alexander said. "Two years ago there were five or fewer serious contenders in the market," she said. "Now I find it almost impossible to keep up with the number of new companies and new displays entering the market on a daily basis."

Also, manufacturing techniques have improved, providing a much better yield of acceptable panels from each production run, which drives the unit price down, said James Chan, flat-panel product manager for Viewsonic Corp. "When we began manufacturing 14-inch displays three years ago, the rejection rate was as high as 50 percent."

Nokia Display Products Inc. recently did research to find out what impact pricing has on the flat-panel market.

The company found that if flat panels cost four times as much as comparable CRT displays, very few customers will choose the flat panel, said John Grundy, Nokia's vice president of marketing. And at three times the price, fewer than half of his customers would consider a flat panel. But for twice the price, most customers would be interested, and for a 20 percent price difference, virtually everyone will buy one, according to Nokia's survey.

Other market observers have found similar results. "The price needs to drop in half again, to 20 to 30 percent over standard monitors for flat panels to become mainstream," said ARS' Red.

"As prices come down, it opens new doors," said Jeff Geis, national marketing manager for displays for Samsung Electronics America Inc. "In the past, the market for flat panels was driven by need-to-have-it applications," he said. IDC forecasts that 8 percent of the 110 million monitors sold in 2001 will be flat panels, and that percentage will grow to 10 to 12 percent the next year. "Price has been the primary barrier in the mainstream segment," Buckingham said. "When the 15-inch and 16-inch monitors get under $1,000, then we've got something."

By the height of the summer buying season, prices for 12.1-inch displays could fall as low as $500, and the popular 14-inch models could be in the $700 to $800 range, said Charles Root, vice president and general manager of displays at Hyundai Electronics America Inc. "We think it is going to take off," he said.

"There is a high interest in the product, but because of budgets, not a lot of purchases," said Ed Schrader, government and corporate sales manager for Samsung. "We'll probably see a lot more purchases of flat panels toward the end of the fiscal year."

-- Carney is a free-lance writer based in Herndon, Va.
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Re: Mrs. Kay Griggs on How the Government Works

Postby admin » Wed Jan 03, 2018 7:10 pm

Hollins University
by google.com
Accessed: 1/3/18

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January 2000

Higher educational institution in Roanoke, Virginia

Hollins University is a four-year private institution of higher education located on a 475-acre campus on the border of Roanoke and Botetourt counties in the U.S. state of Virginia. Wikipedia

Address: 7916 Williamson Rd, Roanoke, VA 24019

Acceptance rate: 61% (2015)

Undergraduate tuition and fees: 37,650 USD (2017)

Typical ACT scores: 20-27 (2014)

Typical SAT scores: Math 460-570 (2014), Reading 500-630 (2014)
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Re: Mrs. Kay Griggs on How the Government Works

Postby admin » Thu Jan 04, 2018 2:28 am

FDR Meets Ibn Saud
by William A. Eddy
Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps, Retired
First U.S. Minister Plenipotentiary to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (1944-1946)
© 1954

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America-Mideast Educational & Training Services, Inc.
1730 M Street, NW, Suite 1100
Washington, DC 20036-4505

Established in 1951, America-Mideast Educational and Training Services, Inc. (AMIDEAST) is a private, nonprofit organization working to strengthen mutual understanding and cooperation between Americans and the peoples of the Middle East and North Africa.

To Mary Garvin Eddy and Carmen Frances Eddy who cheerfully shared the austerity, anxiety, as well as the adventure of Jidda in wartime.


KING IBN SAUD

THE KING OF SAUDI ARABIA, WHO SIGNED HIMSELF “Abdul Aziz Al Saud” but who has come to be known as “Ibn Saud,” was one of the great men of the twentieth century. He won his kingdom and united his people by his personal leadership. He possessed those epic qualities of the leader which Samuel recognized in Saul;* he excelled in the common tasks which all must perform. He was taller, his shoulders were broader, he was a better hunter, a braver warrior, more skillful in wielding a knife whether in personal combat or in skinning a sheep, he excelled in following the tracks of camels and finding his way in the desert. In him his subjects saw their own lives in heroic size, and therefore they made him their king.

For the first time in history he united the Arabian Peninsula, combining its two industries: on the west coast are the holy cities of Mecca and Medina with the annual pilgrimage of the faithful from all over the Muslim world, and on the east coast is the more recent industry of Saudi Arabian oil which has brought the Americans and prosperity. The King was shrewd, self-taught, and very intelligent. His position was that “Allah gave Arabia the true faith and gave the western world the iron,” by which he meant technology and all its fruits -- the telephone, the radio, the airplane, the railroad, and the water pump. Keeping pure what is covered by the Koran -- religion, family life, marriage, education, and Canon Law -- he accepted the “iron,” the technical skills of the West. Able to converse with him as I was in his own language, he often talked with me informally as well as officially from 1944 to 1946. Since then he grew older and feebler, but this is a story of the years before he began to fail.

In those days he was still the very able soldier and shepherd king, feared by his enemies and beloved by his subjects and by his friends. He has thirty-seven living sons, and daughters whose number is untold. The ladies of the family of a Muslim are a private concern -- not the business of any stranger, nor of the public. The King had, it is said, a total of one hundred twenty-five wives during his life, although there was no queen and no princess. The number of these wives, while it might seem to be merely evidence of capacity for affection, is equally to be explained by the political strategy to unite the tribes of the Arabian Peninsula in allegiance to himself, a royal policy not wholly unknown to Queen Victoria, who scattered her descendants upon the thrones of Europe.

In the winter of 1945 Mrs. Eddy (with our small daughter, Carmen) was the first American lady ever received in audience at court by Ibn Saud, so that it is only in very recent years that there has been any direct contact between our American ladies and the patriarchal court of Arabia.

I. PREPARATIONS

BEFORE THE ALLIED LANDING ON THE COAST OF North Africa on November 8, 1942, the handful of us who knew the date and place of the landings were terrified lest we might talk in our sleep. In those days before the landings it was imperative that one neither cancel nor increase normal engagements of any kind lest he give the alert. One must plan to go to the tailor as usual to be measured for a suit, or to a barber for a haircut, or to invite Spanish friends in for a cocktail party which will never come off, just as though nothing were to happen.

We in Jidda were under the same strain in February, 1945. I had been informed that on his way home from Yalta F.D.R. wanted to meet the King secretly on board a cruiser in the Great Bitter Lake in the Suez Canal, and I was told to arrange for this meeting. Secrecy was of the first importance because of the need to protect the security of Mr. Roosevelt.

We were still at war with Germany, bombs were still being dropped on Cairo and on the Suez Canal, and a target more attractive to German bombers could hardly be imagined than a cruiser with the American President and the Arabian King on board. Until a day or two before the departure for the meeting, there were only five persons in Arabia who knew about the plans: the King; his Foreign Minister, Yusuf Yassin; a coding clerk in the American Legation; and Mrs. Eddy and myself.

Several days earlier, the King and his retinue had come from Mecca forty-five miles away to Jidda for the customary annual visit during which the King would meet the officials and notables of the province of Hejaz, receive petitions from his subjects, and distribute charity and food to the poor. A week or so before the date we had announced that the destroyer, U.S.S. MURPHY, would drop anchor in Jidda harbor for a courtesy call during a routine cruise through the Red Sea. This created some comment since no U.S. naval vessel had ever been at Jidda. But the first visit was accepted without any suspicious rumors and the morning before the departure, February 11, 1945, Commodore John S. Keating and Captain B. A. Smith of the MURPHY came ashore to pay their respects to the King and the Jidda palace, to the viceroy of the Hejaz, Amir Faisal, and to the Kaimakam, or Governor, of Jidda. That evening Mrs. Eddy entertained at a buffet dinner on the roof of the Legation the sixteen of the twenty-one ship’s officers who could be given shore leave at the same time, and all the Americans in the vicinity, a total of forty-five -- the largest gathering of Americans in Jidda to date.

The success in keeping the secret in Jidda, where news both true and false travels through the Suq with the speed of light, was really remarkable. Secrecy was aided by the fact that the King had never left Saudi Arabia even to visit neighboring Arab rulers. F.D.R. had assisted in withholding information from the British intelligence by only telling Winston Churchill on the evening before they separated at Yalta of his intention to meet the three rulers of Near Eastern countries: Ibn Saud, King Farouk of Egypt, and Haile Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia. Churchill did not like the plan. He burned up the wires to all his diplomats in the area, demanding that appointments with him be made with the same potentates after they had seen F.D.R.

Churchill was thoroughly nettled at the news that the Americans were making a direct approach to these heads of states in an area the British had come to consider a sort of special preserve -- as, indeed, it had been for scores of years. He made it clear that he considered going over the head of the British government uncooperative, especially if no Britisher were to be present to hear the conversation, and was determined to see each of the Kings, as speedily thereafter as possible to preserve the British position.

He did manage to see them all after F.D.R. left, but without necessarily achieving his purpose. Nothing Churchill could say to Farouk would remove his hate for the British. Ibn Saud did not even answer Churchill’s invitation to meet him until he had gotten F.D.R.’s approval, since he was making the trip to meet F.D.R. and did not want to show any discourtesy to his principal host.


As for Ibn Saud’s visit with Churchill at Fayoum Lake near Cairo, whether or not it was successful from the British point of view I do not know, but I do know that the King did not enjoy his return trip to Jidda. The British are said to have told him that whereas the Americans had taken him to the Suez Canal on a destroyer, they were going to return him on a cruiser, H.M.S. AURORA, indicative of the greater prestige of Great Britain. However, the King told me later that his return trip was very dull -- the food was tasteless; there were no demonstrations of armament; no tent was pitched on the deck; the crew did not fraternize with his Arabs; and altogether he preferred the smaller but more friendly U.S. destroyer.

To return to the story of the preparations for departure . . . At 3 P.M. on the day of embarkation, February 12, 1945, the King simply and suddenly gave orders at the Jidda palace to break camp and “strike the tents” for the return to Mecca. There was nothing strange about this order since the King normally makes such decisions for immediate execution without advance notice to those about him. He dispatched a telegram in code to the Crown Prince, Amir Saud, in Riyadh, telling him to carry on in his father’s name until further notice. He called his second son, Amir Faisal, told him of his departure, and of its purpose, and instructed Faisal to take complete charge in the Hejaz and to take any measures necessary to keep order in Jidda, Mecca, and elsewhere. He then announced the list of those who were to travel with him in his motorcade to Mecca, entered his car, and gave instructions for the automobiles to drive not to Mecca but directly to the pier at Jidda. There the launches from the MURPHY were waiting, the King and his party embarked; at 4:30 P.M. the MURPHY weighed anchor and started on its journey to Suez. Simultaneously, Jidda was plunged into hysterical commotion.

The rumors which flew about like bolts of lightning cancelled each other out, leaving the people stunned and bewildered. Hashemite enemies with long memories proclaimed that the King had fled his country and deserted his people as King Hussein had fled from Jidda aboard a British warship a generation ago. Others declared at the top of their voices that the King had been kidnapped by the Americans. The only known fact was that he had embarked and gone away. The ladies of the King’s harim (that is, the quota which had accompanied him to Jidda) put on their mourning clothes, put ashes on their heads, and in a solid platoon descended upon the Viceroy, Amir Faisal, weeping and wailing at their abandonment by their protector. Faisal bade them return to their quarters saying, “By Allah, why all this commotion? He told me only an hour ago, and he has left the Kingdom in my charge.” The British colony at Jidda in a cool, well-bred way, was furious at having what Americans would call “a fast one” pulled on them. That night, Mrs. Eddy went alone to a British dinner party -- the invitation to which we had both accepted. She reported that, in spite of the perpetual torrid heat of the Jidda climate, she found at that party an unprecedented frost, with the temperature well below freezing!

II. EMBARKATION

A FEW HOURS BEFORE THE LAUNCHES WITH THE ARAB party came alongside the destroyer, several large dhows also arrived at the ship laden with tons of vegetables, sacks of grain and rice, and one hundred of the best and fattest sheep. In other words, the normal provisions which the King would provide for an extensive sojourn in the desert. He had given orders that everybody on the ship must eat of his bounty, including the American sailors who had come to Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Minister of Finance, Shaikh Abdullah Sulaiman, preceded the King on board ship and told Commodore Keating that all these provisions and the one hundred live sheep must be loaded at once by royal order of His Majesty. The Commodore had quite contrary and standing orders from the U.S. Navy and he was fortunately able to stall until I arrived with the King on the pretext that he did not fully understand what was being asked of him through a very halting interpreter. I was immediately in the middle of a conflict, and I was destined to stay in the middle for a week. I explained to the King that the Commodore had 60-days provisions in the lockers on board, adequate for all. The King replied that this made no difference -- his American guests must eat from his table and from the produce of his country, and particularly they must eat the freshly slaughtered lamb every day. The Navy replied that their lockers also included frozen meat -- more than enough for everybody. The King had not yet, however, had any experience with refrigeration in his country where meat spoils within twenty-four hours and he brushed aside this superstitious proposal that anyone could eat meat sixty days old, insisting that fresh sheep must be slaughtered daily on board. Finally, he had to be told that the sailors would be put in prison if they disobeyed Navy regulations and ate anything except the Navy rations provided for them, and surely he did not wish all of these good sailors to be dishonored for life and imprisoned unnecessarily!

He then compromised, shaking his head over the curious ways of the Unbeliever, but insisted that his Arabs as good Muslims must obey the ceremonial and dietary laws of their own land. No Saudi Muslim ever ate meat more than twenty-four hours old. Commodore Keating, with a couple of dirty looks at me, finally agreed to take seven live sheep on board out of one hundred. As Mrs. Eddy went out in a launch to lunch on the MURPHY, she saw the other ninety-three returning to shore on their dhow, reprieved to live a little longer. As the MURPHY steamed out of Jidda harbor, to the amazement of the sailors, one of the seven sheep was already being skinned on the fantail of the destroyer.

My original instructions from the U.S. Government had been to explain that the party accompanying the King must be limited strictly to four notables and a maximum of eight servants and bodyguards. From the American point of view this was more than adequate, since everything the King might need would be provided for him during his absence. This limitation in numbers was imposed partly by lack of space on a destroyer and partly to facilitate secrecy, since a small party can move less conspicuously than a larger one. I conveyed the invitation with these conditions, but I had also warned our Government to expect the party to double in size before the King embarked, because I knew what competition there would be among the princes and others to accompany the King, and because of the custom of the King of traveling with many attendants in the style of a bedouin chief. In the preliminary conversations Yusuf Yassin had told me confidentially that the party must include a harim for the King, since the King cannot be considered to be traveling in state unless he has accommodations which provide for his family as well as for himself and his men. I was able to kill this, however, by explaining the impossibility of seclusion on board a destroyer whose ladders and companionways must remain open for the passage all day long of able-bodied seamen going about their business of making the ship run. I assured him that the King would not want his ladies trying to navigate the companionways which were very steep and narrow and where a sudden lurch of the ship might throw them off balance and unveil (at least) their faces. Yusuf Yassin was shocked and disappointed to learn that half the ship could not be curtained off from deck to keel for the King’s private use, but I told him the ship could not run that way and we had to make the best of the available space.

The party of Arabs which embarked finally numbered not twelve, but exactly forty-eight, and would have numbered one hundred if the strongest pressure had not been exerted to keep the party down.
For two-thirds of these there were, of course, no accommodations whatever aboard the destroyer. The Commodore’s cabin had been prepared for the King. Three other officers’ cabins were given to the younger brother of the King, Amir Abdullah, his third son, Amir Mohammed, and his sixth son, Amir Mansur, the Minister of Defense. Another cabin was shared by Yusuf Yassin, the Foreign Minister; Adbullah Sulaiman, the Minister of Finance; and Hafiz Wahba, Saudi Minister of State. The rest bunked wherever they could find space -- many sleeping in the gun turrets, wrapped up in their Arab robes in the scuppers, or curled up near the feet of the look-out on the bridge.

Besides those mentioned already, the party included the King’s private physician, Dr. Pharaon; Bashir Bey Sa’adawi, Privy Councillor, his chamberlain and major domo, Abdul Rahman Tobaishy; the court astrologer, Majid Ibn Khataila; body-guards, coffee-servers (whose splendor of costume contrasted with the King’s own unadorned and unjeweled camel-hair robe), cook, scullions, and slaves. The King did not sleep in the Commodore’s cabin. Bred and raised in the desert, four walls gave him claustrophobia. Canvas was spread over the forecastle deck to convert it into a tent; oriental rugs covered the deck; one of his own chairs, large enough for him to sit in, had been brought aboard, and the King sat on deck and held his Majlis as usual all day long. At prayer times the ship’s navigator would give him the exact compass bearing for Mecca which the King would verify with his astrologer. Facing toward the holy city he would then lead the entire company of Arabs in their prayers.

III. THE VOYAGE

THE TRIP FROM JIDDA TO SUEZ TOOK TWO NIGHTS and one day. I shall not describe it in detail because the Navy’s story of the days on board the U.S.S. MURPHY has already been told dramatically and colorfully by Captain John S. Keating, in command of the cruise.* The voyage was delightful; the weather for the most part was fine. The sailors were much more impressed and astonished by the Arabs and their ways than the Arabs were by life on the U.S. destroyer. Neither group had seen anything like their opposites before, but the difference is that any such violent break with tradition is news on board a U.S. destroyer; whereas, wonders and improbable events are easily accepted by the Arab whether they occur in the Arabian Nights or in real life.

The Arab is by nature a fatalist and accepts what comes as a matter of course and as a gift from Allah, all of whose gifts are equally wondrous, undeserved and unexplained. The Arab gets off a camel and climbs into an airplane without any special excitement even though he has skipped all the intervening stages of the horse and buggy and the automobile. Allah gave the camel the proper equipment to walk on the sand and he gave the airplane wings with which to fly like a bird. There is, therefore, no reason to be astonished at the airplane any more than to be astonished that camels can walk or birds fly.


The Arabs and the sailors fraternized without words with a success and friendliness which was really astonishing. The sailors showed the Arabs how they did their jobs and even permitted the Arabs to help them; in return the Arabs would permit the sailors to examine their garb and their daggers, and demonstrate by gestures how they are made and for what purposes. The Arabs were particularly puzzled by the Negro mess-boys on board who, they assumed, must be Arabs and to whom they insisted on speaking Arabic since the only Negroes whom they had ever known were those who had been brought to Arabia as slaves many years ago. With difficulty they were persuaded that these mess-boys were not only American citizens but as much a part of the Navy and of the United States as any of their white shipmates.

The first morning after a Negro mess-boy (paradoxically named White) had served the King a very full breakfast of fruit, coffee and eggs without ham, he returned a few minutes later with a plateful of hot pancakes and a jug of syrup. The King smiled and declined, saying that he had his fill and did not wish any more. Yusuf Yassin, sitting nearby, eyed the pancakes hungrily. The King observed this look and said, “Yusuf, you are so fat you need extra food to keep you going. Why don’t you eat these pancakes?” But this was said in Arabic and the mess-boy did not understand that permission had been given. Yusuf Yassin then reached out for the pancakes which White withdrew beyond his reach, saying, “These pancakes are for the King and nobody else can’t have none of them.” When translated this brought considerable amusement from the Arab group at the expense of Yusuf Yassin. White made his exit with the pancakes. During the trip the King learned to like a number of American dishes which he had never tasted before, although he continued to have his lamb and rice cooked by his own servants. He was particularly fond of our American apples and of apple pie ala mode, and since that time American apple trees have been planted in the Al Kharj agricultural experiment station. The last night on board the King insisted on being host to the twenty-one officers on the ship at an Arab meal with only Arab food served. The entire group sat cross-legged on the deck around the King who was in the best of humor and entertained the company with anecdotes of his battles; to their great delight, describing hand-to-hand combats and showing them one of his fingers broken years ago and still immobilized by a fragment of a Turkish cannon ball.

During the day the King was given a demonstration of anti-aircraft fire at smoke targets, and of depth bombs discharged at targets towed behind the ship. He showed keen interest in all phases of the ship’s armament. He posed willingly for photographs and movie shots of himself with the ship’s officers. After supper and before he retired early, as he always does, a documentary moving picture film was shown on deck before the King and his company. His favorite was the technicolor film of an airplane carrier entitled “The Fighting Lady,” which he declared to be wonderful, but added, “I doubt whether my people should have moving pictures even like this wonderful film because it would give them an appetite for entertainment which might distract them from their religious duties.” Stories had no doubt reached him of the sinks of iniquity in Cairo where frivolous Hollywood films are very popular.

I said that a good time was had by all on the voyage, but a good time was had by all except me. The matter of movies is a case in point. After the showing of the documentary films on the deck and after the King had retired for the night, the usual ship’s movies were shown to the crew below decks. This secret leaked to the ears of the King’s third son, Amir Mohammed, who the first morning on board took me aside by the rail and inquired quietly whether I would prefer to be destroyed all at once or to be chopped up in small pieces, bit by bit. I asked him what was the matter, and he said Hollywood picture were being shown below decks and that he was not invited. Abject with terror, I reminded him that his royal father would not approve of any Arab, much less one of his sons, attending these godless exhibitions of half-naked women, and I begged him to forget the matter. He said very little but what he said was emphatic -- to the effect that either he would see these pictures or my children would soon be orphans, and he swore that if I obeyed him he would keep my confidence and not tell his father. To make a long story short, Amir Mohammed and Amir Mansur, his younger brother, were in the front row at the late showing for the crew that night of a movie which featured Lucille Ball loose in a college men’s dormitory late at night, barely surviving escapades in which her dress is ripped off. The film was greeted by whistles and applauding whoops from the crew; an approval fully shared by the two princes. The following repetition of the film was attended by at least twenty-five Arabs. Fortunately, so far as I know news of this orgy never reached the ears of the King.

There were other endless troubles for me, the only link in language and in customs between the 269 Naval personnel and the 48 Saudi Arabs on board. I had a 24-hour job interpreting and mediating; I had to stop Arab servants from making coffee on charcoal burners over the dynamite and re-route sailors who would otherwise pass back and forth in front of Arabs while at their prayers, as no unbeliever should cast his shadow between a praying Muslim and Mecca. I had to keep Arabs out of the engine room and the chart room, and somehow try to locate and round up an Arab who had gotten lost in the ship’s labyrinth at a moment when the King had suddenly asked for him.
On one such occasion, just as the sun disappeared below the horizon of the Red Sea and the King was about to lead the Maghrib prayer, he demanded, “Where is Mansur?” but nobody knew. The King told me to find him and produce him. Amir Mansur had gotten lost somewhere, probably mistaking fore for aft, and could not be returned to the forecastle deck until the group prayers were completed. The King was furious. We all stood by very quiet while Mansur went through his devotions twice, fully and correctly. In prayer there is with the devout Muslim no rank and no front pew. Allah is so omnipotent and man is so insignificant that the differences in rank among men are wholly unimportant and indistinguishable in the sight of God. Therefore, no deviation from his religious duty is permitted to a prince any more than to a slave, and the King made it clear to all that his son enjoyed privileges neither with the Almighty nor with himself.

The singleness of belief in an omnipotent God who is so almighty and so remote is illustrated in a Muslim saying which may be translated as follows:

“Whatever concept your mind comes at, I tell you flat, God is not that.”


While illustrating the supremacy of God, this concept is, of course, very far from the Christian idea that God made himself known in human flesh to human beings. No Muslim would think of calling God a “Father” because a father is a purely human concept. The Muslim is offended by Christian use of phrases such as “Son of God” and “Mother of God.”

The last morning before debarkation the King gave gifts in accordance with the custom of the desert Arab. To the Commodore and Captain he gave Arab costumes and gold daggers. To each of the other officers he gave Arab costumes and a watch inscribed with the King’s name. Over the loudspeaker it was announced to the entire crew that in appreciation of the many courtesies shown him on board, the King was giving to each Petty Officer fifteen pounds sterling, and to each seaman ten pounds sterling. A sailor standing near me said, “Gosh, Colonel, how much is that in real money?” The Captain made special arrangements later to have a finance officer board the ship at Port Said to change these pounds into dollars for the sailors. The Commodore and the Captain asked me what they could give the King and I told them that they might give him souvenirs of the trip, particularly some article used regularly on board the destroyer. They gave him gifts of objects which he had already admired: two submachine guns, and a pair of Navy field glasses.

It would be difficult to describe the reactions of the sailors to these weird, courteous, and fascinating Arab travelers. It may be illustrated, however, by the alleged experience of the ship’s doctor who, upon arrival alongside the President’s cruiser, the U.S.S. QUINCY, in the Suez Canal, having no further duties for the time being, crossed the gangplank to seek out below decks the Navy doctor on the cruiser who had been detained in sickbay and had not been on deck to witness the approach of the destroyer or the crossing of the Arab party over the gangplank. Glad to relax, and perhaps hoping to impress his superior, the doctor from the destroyer began to tell something of the experiences of the last two days: the destroyer’s deck, he said, was carpeted with oriental rugs; coffee was cooked regularly over charcoal in the gun-turrets; 7-foot Nubian slaves roamed the ship with clanking scimitars swinging from their belts; live sheep were slaughtered daily on the fantail, etc. The older medical officer from the QUINCY looked at him sharply and said in a kind voice: “How do you find life on a destroyer? Are you sleeping all right? Sure you aren’t under a strain? Here, sit down and have a cigarette and relax.” The doctor from the MURPHY was very indignant; he insisted that his superior medical officer come aboard the destroyer and see with his own eyes this fantasy of East and West which (in spite of Kipling) did meet east of Suez in the strangest economy ever seen on a U.S. naval vessel.

IV. THE MEETING

In Ancient Rome, Lupercalia, observed February 13–15, was an archaic rite connected to fertility. Lupercalia was a festival local to the city of Rome.

-- Valentine's Day, by Wikipedia


AT 10 A.M. FEBRUARY 14, 1945, IN GREAT BITTER LAKE in the Suez Canal the U.S.S. MURPHY tied up alongside the U.S.S. QUINCY which had taken the President from the United States to Yalta and was to take him back home. The rails of the QUINCY were manned but no salutes were fired as the meeting was to be conducted without alerting the neighborhood. The King, the three princes, and the two ministers crossed the gangplank and went to meet the President who was sitting in his wheelchair on deck. The King and F.D.R. conversed on deck for an hour and a quarter. After the preliminary greetings the King right away asked the President whether he should accept Churchill’s invitation to see him later -- an invitation which he thought might give the President displeasure, but the President said, “Why not? I always enjoy seeing Mr. Churchill and I’m sure you will like him too.”

About 11:30 lunch was announced and Admiral Leahy said to me, “You go down with the King in one elevator to the President’s private messhall, and I’ll bring the President down in the other.” I accompanied the King down to the President’s private suite where he had plenty of time to wash up and several more minutes to spare before the President appeared in his wheelchair. Admiral Leahy later told me that on the way down in the elevator F.D.R. had pressed the red emergency button which stopped the elevator between decks and smoked two cigarettes. Out of courtesy for the King’s Wahhabi principles the President, a chain smoker, did not smoke at all when he was with the King. The luncheon included, besides the President and the King, the three princes, Yusuf Yassin and Abdullah Sulaiman, Admiral Leahy and Charles Bohlen. Then after lunch all withdrew except the President, the King, Yusuf Yassin, and myself as interpreter, to continue the political conversation until 3:30 P.M. They were thus together at least five very intense hours.

At 3:30 P.M. the Captain of the QUINCY arrived to say that the ship must leave. The King said this was impossible as the President must first come over to the destroyer, his temporary home, to be his guest at an Arab meal; that the establishment of a friendship such as this could not possibly be complete without his entertaining his friend and giving him Arab food. The President explained that much to his regret the movements of the ship and the security clearances for the convoy were inflexible and the schedule must be maintained to the minute. The King seemed very much put out and turning to me he upbraided me violently in Arabic for not having warned him of these arrangements so that earlier in the afternoon he could have acted as host to the President. I told him truthfully that I knew nothing about the convoy’s schedule. The King then said to the president, “Will you at least drink a cup of Arabian coffee?” Orders were given and within a very few minutes the two resplendent coffee-servers, brushing past all of the guards, appeared in the President’s suite and poured cups of Arab coffee for the President and the King. The following day the President told me that no incident had touched him so much as the pleasure which the King showed on serving coffee from Arabia to his new friend. The King and his party took their leave. They had hardly crossed the gangplank to the MURPHY before the QUINCY weighed anchor and was swiftly on its way to Port Said.

The King and the President got along famously together. Among many passages of pleasant conversation I shall choose the King’s statement to the President that the two of them really were twins: (1) they were both of the same age (which was not quite correct); (2) they were both heads of states with grave responsibilities to defend, protect and feed their people; (3) they were both at heart farmers, the President having made quite a hit with the King by emphasizing his rural responsibilities as the squire of Hyde Park and his interest in agriculture; (4) they both bore in their bodies grave physical infirmities -- the President obliged to move in a chair and the King walking with difficulty and unable to climb stairs because of wounds in his legs. With regard to their physical handicaps the President said to the King: “You are luckier than I because you can still walk on your legs and I have to be wheeled wherever I go.” To this the King replied: “No, my friend, you are the more fortunate. Your chair will take you wherever you want to go and you know you will get there. My legs are less reliable and are getting weaker every day.” The President then said, “If you think so highly of this chair I will give you the twin of this chair as I have two on board,” and immediately the order was given and the chair was wheeled across the gangplank to the MURPHY. Whenever the King took friends through his palace at Riyadh, if they were close friends, he showed them his private apartment where his wheelchair rested with the White House tag still on it. The King always said, “This chair is my most precious possession. It is the gift of my great and good friend, President Roosevelt, on whom Allah has had mercy.” The King who later used a wheelchair, did not use this gift chair which was built for the very slight and frail F.D.R. and could never be used by the King, a man of terrific physique and stature.

Throughout this meeting, President Roosevelt was in top form as a charming host, witty conversationalist, with the spark and light in his eyes and that gracious smile which always won people over to him whenever he talked with them as a friend. However, every now and then I would catch him off guard and see his face in repose. It was ashen in color; the lines were deep; the eyes would fade in helpless fatigue. He was living on his nerve. His doctors had told him not to go to Yalta. With Ibn Saud he was at his very best; but he was living on borrowed time, and eight weeks later he was dead.

That night Yusuf Yassin and I, with the aid of Merritt Grant (my colleague from the Legation who had accompanied me with his typewriter), beat out a draft of a Memorandum of Conversation on which both King and President had expressed a desire to agree. The memorandum was finally completed in both English and Arabic and before he went to sleep that night the King signed the Arabic text.
In the meantime the President’s cruiser had gone through the Suez Canal, past Port Said, around the coast of Egypt, to drop anchor for one day in the harbor of Alexandria.

The following morning on February 15, I was flown to Alexandria to submit the memorandum of conversation to Mr. Roosevelt. The President read it and said, “This is all right, just as it is,” and signed it without changing a syllable or a comma. Others had joined his party in Alexandria, including Secretary of State Edward Stettinius, and Ambassador to London, John Winant. The statesmen around the President immediately expressed the greatest concern regarding the disposition of copies of the memorandum. Harry Hopkins warned me not to transmit this memorandum through the Legation to the Department, but rather to give him a copy then and there, which copy would suffice for the State Department and prevent the confidential memorandum from being read by a great many secretaries and filing clerks. One copy was of course kept for the President and another copy of the signed English text I took back to the King.

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King Ibn Saud comes aboard the U.S.S. Quincy

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The conference aboard the U.S.S. Quincy 1-r. Colonel Eddy, King Ibn Saud, President Roosevelt

V. THE CONFERENCE

NOTHING HAS BEEN PUBLISHED ABOUT THE Political conversations because nobody who was present has broken his silence. I am now breaking mine.

The King steadfastly refused to use, quote or show his copy of the memorandum of conversation. He regarded the occasion as one where a personal friendship between two heads of state, and between two men, was established. In his simple Arab view, such friendship depends wholly upon good will and good faith. When these died with F.D.R. and were not revived by his successor, they cannot be resurrected by producing a piece of paper. As an Arab guest at the meeting, Ibn Saud initiated no topics.

He waited for his host to propose subjects for serious discussion. It might be noted in passing that at no time did Ibn Saud even hint at economic or financial aid for Saudi Arabia. He traveled to the meeting seeking friends and not funds, in spite of the fact that, at that date, he had no reason to expect that Arabian oil would be produced in quantity to multiply his national income but, on the contrary, ruled in 1945 over a pastoral land which could not produce enough to feed its population, and a land cut off by war from importing the necessities of life.

THE PRESIDENT

After discussing the progress of the war, and expressing his confidence that Germany would be defeated, F.D.R. stated that he had a serious problem in which he desired the King’s advice and help; namely, the rescue and rehabilitation of the remnant of Jews in Central Europe who had suffered indescribable horrors at the hands of the Nazis: eviction, destruction of their homes, torture and mass-murder. He, F.D.R., felt a personal responsibility and indeed had committed himself to help solve this problem. What could the King suggest?

Ibn Saud’s reply was prompt and laconic: “Give them and their descendants the choicest lands and homes of the Germans who had oppressed them.”

F.D.R. replied that the Jewish survivors have a sentimental desire to settle in Palestine and, quite understandably, would dread remaining in Germany where they might suffer again.

The King said that he had no doubt the Jews have good reason not to trust the Germans, but surely the Allies will destroy Nazi power forever and in their victory will be strong enough to protect Nazi victims. If the Allies do not expect firmly to control future German policy, why fight this costly war? He, Ibn Saud, could not conceive of leaving an enemy in a position to strike back after defeat.

In a few minutes, F.D.R. returned to the attack, saying that he counted on Arab hospitality and on the King’s help in solving the problem of Zionism, but the King repeated: “Make the enemy and the oppressor pay; that is how we Arabs wage war. Amends should be made by the criminal, not by the innocent bystander. What injury have Arabs done to the Jews of Europe? It is the ‘Christian’ Germans who stole their homes and lives. Let the Germans pay.” Once more, F.D.R. returned to the subject, complaining that the King had not helped him at all with his problem, but the King, having lost some patience, did not expound his views again, beyond stating (with a note of irony in his voice) that this over-solicitude for the Germans was incomprehensible to an uneducated bedouin with whom friends get more consideration than enemies. The King’s final remark on the subject was to the effect that it is Arab custom to distribute survivors and victims of battle among the victorious tribes in accordance with their number and their supplies of food and water. In the Allied camp there are fifty countries, among whom Palestine is small, land-poor and has already been assigned more than its quota of European refugees.

THE KING

Ibn Saud, in his turn, asked F.D.R. for friendship and support. In the conversation the King never seemed to distinguish between F.D.R. as a person and as President of the U.S.A. To an absolute as well as a benevolent monarch, the Chief and the State are the same.

The King stated that his first desire for his land and his people is independence, for which he depends on Allah. Unlike some other Arab lands, his country had never been occupied nor “protected” as a dependent. Without this independence, he would not and could not seek an honorable friendship, because friendship is possible only with mutual and equal respect. Next to independence, the King said, comes his desire for F.D.R’s friendship because F.D.R. is known as the champion of the Four Freedoms and of every freedom. Furthermore, the King had found that the U.S.A. never colonizes nor enslaves. In very simple language, such as he must often have used in cementing alliances with tribal chiefs, Ibn Saud then asked F.D.R. for friendship.

The President then gave Ibn Saud the double assurance, repeated just one week before his death in his letter to Ibn Saud, dated April 5, 1945: (1) He personally, as president, would never do anything which might prove hostile to the Arabs; and (2) the U.S. Government would make no change in its basic policy in Palestine without full and prior consultation with both Jews and Arabs.* To the King, these oral assurances were equal to an alliance; he did not foresee that Death was waiting in the wings to bear the speaker away before the promises could be redeemed.
Now that Mr. Dulles has completed the first goodwill tour ever made by an American Secretary of State to the Near East, Ibn Saud’s son and successor, for long his father’s closest counselor, may again hope that the promise will be revived.

MR. TRUMAN

The historic conference had an anticlimax at the White House which has never been reported.

The first week in October, 1945, the Secretary of State recalled four chiefs of U.S. Missions simultaneously to have them testify as a group to Mr. Truman regarding the deterioration of American political interests in the Near East: the U.S. Ministers in Egypt, Lebanon and Syria (jointly), Saudi Arabia, and the Consul-General to mandated Palestine.

The four arrived for a White House appointment which had been scheduled for about October 10.

The four were kept idle in Washington four weeks, away from their posts and with no duties whatsoever, because the White House advisors, including David K. Niles, persuaded the President that it would be impolitic to see his Ministers to Arab countries, no matter how briefly, prior to the November Congressional elections.

After the elections, the Director of the Near East Office of the Department of State was allowed to bring the four in for a private conference with Mr. Truman. The spokesman for the group, George Wadsworth, presented orally an agreed statement in about twenty minutes. There was little discussion and the President asked few questions in the meeting whose Minutes have been carefully guarded in the Department of State. Finally, Mr. Truman summed up his position with the utmost candor: “I’m sorry, gentlemen, but I have to answer to hundreds of thousands who are anxious for the success of Zionism; I do not have hundreds of thousands of Arabs among my constituents.”

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THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON

February 16, 1945.

My dear Colonel,

I wish to tell you how much I admire and appreciate the manner in which you handled all the arrangements for my meeting with King Ibn Saud. I know that the successful results involved most painstaking and delicate preparations on your part. It was for me a most interesting and stimulating experience and I want you to know how fully I am aware of the important part which you played, not only in the arrangements, but also in the conversation itself in making our meeting so outstanding a success. With my kindest wishes,

Very sincerely yours,

Franklin Roosevelt

Honorable W.A. Eddy,
The American Legation,
Jidda, Saudi Arabia


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FLEET ADMIRAL WILLIAM D. LEAHY, U.S.N.

17 September 1953

Dear Colonel Eddy:

Please accept this expression of high appreciation of your understanding courtesy in sending me a copy of your splendit narrative of the meeting of Franklin Roosevelt and Abdul Aziz Al Saud on board the U.S.S. Quincy in Bitter Lake of the Suez Canal on February 14, 1945.

I find your narrative is in complete agreement with so much of the meeting as it was possible for me to understand with my complete lack of knowledge of the Arabic language, as well as with my estimate of the character of the king with my same linguistic limitations.

Your narrative will be treasured with my most valued notes of the war years.

My congratulations on all your efforts on behalf of the friendly Arabs wherever they were at that time. If Franklin Roosevelt had been permitted to remain with us longer your success would have been greater.

With high personal regards,

Sincerely,

William D. Leahy, U.S.N.

Colonel William A. Eddy, U.S.M.C.
340 Shoreham Building
Washington 5, D.C.


VI. THE RETURN

HAVING TAKEN MY LEAVE OF THE PRESIDENT I WAS asked by his daughter, Mrs. Anna Roosevelt Boettiger, to come below and explain to her the contents of several enormous parcels which had been delivered to the QUINCY addressed to Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt and to Mrs. Boettiger. I went down to find a royal parade of gifts on view in a cabin. There were several complete full-dress harim costumes, beautifully embroidered in many colors of silk. Arabian ladies are limited in their opportunities to impress others with these beautiful gowns since they are worn only indoors and seen only by the husband, father, sons, and other ladies. In addition to the harim clothes, the gifts included several vials of rarely tinted glass, others of alabaster, containing the perfumes of Araby, including the favorite of all–attar of roses. Also there were large pieces of uncut amber, the like of whose size I have never seen, from the bottom of the Red Sea. From the eastern coasts of Arabia there were pearl rings, pearl earrings, pearl-studded bracelets and anklets, and belts woven of gold thread with cunning devices, the skill which has reached its highest perfection in Saudi Arabia, the crowning achievement in handiwork of the women of the Hasa.

While I was going over the gifts with Mrs. Boettiger, Churchill arrived on board and was with the President when I emerged on deck. The President introduced me to Mr. Churchill and said facetiously, “This is my Minister to Arabia. He has Ibn Saud on one of my destroyers and I haven’t decided yet whether or not you are going to see the King.” Mr. Churchill merely rolled his cigar around between his lips, and grinned confidently.

The principal present from the King to the President, a beautiful diamond-encrusted sword, had not been delivered to me at the airplane in time for me to take to Alexandria. The King, however, directed that it be entrusted to me and that I be made responsible for seeing that it reached Mr. Roosevelt. Late that afternoon the King and his party debarked from the MURPHY into a motorcade of cars provided by the British and drove off to the Fayoum Oasis where he was to meet Churchill. It was a relief to know that my responsibilities were over, without any potentate being assassinated or any miscarriage of the confidential arrangements. To be sure, I was not entirely in the clear because I still had the sword which, fortunately, was in a very plain-looking box and would not therefore especially attract a homicidal thief. The next day General Giles sent a special officer-courier with the sword on a plane going to Algiers where the QUINCY was to anchor briefly.

Thus ends my narrative of this historic meeting. The President returned to Washington to live long enough to make in person one address to Congress in the course of which he said, ad lib, “I learned more [about Palestine and the Near East] by talking with Ibn Saud for five minutes than I could have learned in exchange of two or letters.”*

The King returned to Jidda to a tumultuous welcome from his people who for once were permitted to disregard the Wahhabi Blue laws and to dance in the streets, while school children sang praises of their Prophet and their King. The reappearance of the King in the flesh occasioned an outburst of wild rejoicing since many still were not wholly convinced that he would return.

VII. POSTSCRIPT

TO THOSE OF US WHO WERE CLOSE TO THE SCENE this meeting was significant for several reasons:

(1) It was a colorful meeting of two very different but equally impressive heads of state, who were spokesmen for East and for West.

(2) The previously isolationist monarch, Ibn Saud, left his country for the first time. Since that day the doors have been swinging open to the previously closed culture of central Arabia.

(3) The guardian of the Holy Places of Islam, and the nearest we have to a successor to the Caliphs, the Defender of the Muslim Faith and of the Holy Cities of three hundred million people, cemented a friendship with the head of a great Western and Christian nation. The meeting marks the high point of Muslim alliance with the West. This moral alliance, this willingness of the leader of Islam to face West and bind his fortunes to ours, symbolizes a consummation devoutly to be wished in the world today. With Eastern Europe and perhaps Far East Asia lost to us, with Western Europe and Latin America on our side, there remains a vast tract of land from Morocco to Pakistan and Afghanistan containing several hundred million people, vast resources of manpower, food and oil, and the strategic bases and the warm water ports which would be indispensable to us in a third world war. Yet, since 1945, little has been accomplished officially to bind the Muslims to us while a great deal has been done to alienate them. (4) So far as its effect upon the Near East was concerned, the meeting between Mr. Roosevelt and Ibn Saud found its greatest significance in the fact that for once the United States spoke to the friendly and sovereign governments and peoples of that area with its own voice, in its own name and with its own lips. The insistence of Churchill upon meeting the three monarchs immediately after they had seen Mr. Roosevelt was caused by the anxiety of some of the powers lest the United States deal directly with the peoples of the Near East. The French were equally worried when, at the Casablanca Conference, Mr. Roosevelt insisted on seeing the Sultan of Morocco without being chaperoned by the French Administrator.

The people of the Near East, unlike the colonizing powers, have hoped and longed for direct dealing with the U.S.A. without any intervention of a third party. The habits of the past which led us to regard North Africa and the Near East as preserves of Europe were broken at one blow by Mr. Roosevelt when he met the three kings in the Suez Canal in 1945. For years our State Department and diplomats, led by Wallace Murray and Loy Henderson, had worked to bring about this direct and friendly approach of one sovereign state to another, with success in Syria and Lebanon, without much success in Iraq, and with no visible results in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Even as late as 1941 the White House had informed Ibn Saud that Lend-Lease aid to Arabia or loans for public works, though financed by the United States, would be routed through British hands, since Arabia was “remote” from the United States.

Today we are in some danger of a return to this policy of tacitly recognizing European spheres of influence in the Near East. Arabs are perplexed to understand why so often we act not directly in line with our own national policies but indirectly and apparently for the benefit of a third party, which is neither the American nor the Arab, but some European power or even Israel.

The personal friendship of Mr. Roosevelt with Ibn Saud could not have outlasted their lives in any case. But the great regret in the Near East over the untimely death of our late president is that he was not able to establish as a precedent and perpetuate this policy of direct dealing on the basis of our own mutual interests.

However, the loss of the good will of these millions of Muslims might yet be retrieved by friendly gestures of comradeship and of alliance. Our diplomats, our Point IV program, our Department of Defense, may yet have time to convince the Near East that we place a very real value upon their friendship, their independence of Russia, upon their stability and prosperity, and upon the common front which Islam like Christianity faces in the threat from atheistic Russian imperialism.

It was not so long ago that our travelers in the Far East returned with ridicule of the Chinese armies as composed of half-hearted or chicken-hearted men who carry umbrellas rather than guns into battle and who fight only when the spirit moves them. We do not now ridicule the Chinese soldier in Korea in those terms. Why? Equipment and discipline make all the difference. The Muslim world does not have tanks or atom bombs and is, therefore, often brushed aside as unimportant in the world struggle. Like the Chinese, they also, however, might be united, armed, and disciplined, either for freedom or for tyranny.


The United States can still tip the balance one way or the other. If we regard the nations of the world as a string of sixty-odd pearls, we have to admit that the string has been broken and many of the pearls lost. The most precious of all remaining pearls, one which is not firmly within our mutual circle, but which is still within our reach, is the friendship, the good will, and the resources of the three hundred million Muslims of the world. There are those who are bent upon taking this pearl of great price and hurling it to the bottom of the sea. If they succeed in that wanton and disloyal act, let them hope that the American people will some day forgive them; for they know not what they do.

William A. Eddy

Colonel William A. Eddy, U. S. Marine Corps, Retired, is the only person alive who knows exactly what was said between F.D.R. and Ibn Saud, as he was sole interpreter throughout.

He was born in Sidon (Lebanon) in 1896, the son and grandson of Presbyterian missionaries who lived and died in Syria. He received his Litt.B. from Princeton University, 1917; PhD., 1922.


Professor of English, American University at Cairo, 1923- 28; Dartmouth College, 1928-1936.

President of Hobart and William Smith Colleges, 1936- 1941.

U.S. Naval Attache, American Legation, Cairo, 1941.

Chief of OSS in North Africa, 1942-43.

First U.S. Minister Plenipotentiary of Saudi Arabia, 1944-1946.


Consultant to Arabian-American Oil Co., 1947-1952.

Consulta

Holder of Navy Cross, the Distinguished Service Cross, The Silver Star (2), the Purple Heart (2), The Legion of Merit. Wounded in battle of Belleau Woods, 1918.

_______________

Notes:

* “There was not a goodlier person than he; from his shoulders and upward he was higher than any of his people.” (I Samuel IX:2)

*True Magazine, December, 1953; See also Life, March 19, 1945.

* The double promise in this paragraph, contained in the letter from F.D.R. to Ibn Saud, April 5, 1945, is the only part of this conference which has ever been published. See N.Y. Times, October 19, 1945.

* See N.Y. Times, March 2, 1945. In Robert Sherwood’s Roosevelt and Hopkins, Mr. Hopkins conveys the curious impression that President Roosevelt was disappointed in his conferences with Ibn Saud. On the contrary, the President wrote to me, February 16, 1945, that his meeting with Ibn Saud was “so outstanding a success” as well as “a most interesting and stimulating experience.”
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Re: Mrs. Kay Griggs on How the Government Works

Postby admin » Thu Jan 04, 2018 5:14 am

George Edward Moose (1944–)
by Office of the Historian
Department of State, United States of America
Accessed: 1/3/18

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Career Foreign Service Officer
States of Residence: Colorado, Maryland

1. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary (Benin)
Appointed: October 7, 1983
Presentation of Credentials: November 4, 1983
Termination of Mission: Left post on July 7, 1986

2. Director of the Office of Management Policy
Appointed: April 15, 1987
Termination of Appointment: June 6, 1988

3. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary (Senegal)
Appointed: April 28, 1988
Presentation of Credentials: October 13, 1988
Termination of Mission: Left post on May 21, 1991

4. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs
Appointed: April 1, 1993
Entry on Duty: April 2, 1993
Termination of Appointment: August 22, 1997


5. Representative of the U.S.A. to the European Office of the United Nations (Geneva)
Appointed: November 18, 1997
Termination of Mission: May 31, 2001

6. Career Ambassador
Appointed: April 1, 2002
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Re: Mrs. Kay Griggs on How the Government Works

Postby admin » Thu Jan 04, 2018 5:46 am

From Beirut to Jerusalem [Excerpt]
by Thomas L. Friedman
© 2016 by Thomas L. Friedman

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On February 26, 1984, the day the Marines completed their pullout from Lebanon, chief operations officer Lieutenant Colonel Ernest Van Huss and his commander, Colonel Pat Faulkner, Decided that they would have a formal ceremony to turn their Beirut Airport complex of bunkers and gun positions back over to whatever was left of the Lebanese army. The Marines and the Lebanese army had shared a joint command post at Beirut Airport. On the wall there the Marines’ American flag was hanging crossed with a Lebanese flag. Being Marines, they didn’t just want to take the flag down; they wanted to have an official ceremony to strike their colors. The Marine commanders had planned to take the flag back to America and present it to the widow of the last Marine to die in Lebanon.

As Lieutenant Colonel Van Huss said later, “We had no intention of leaving our flag there to be abused or ignored or whatever. That to us represented U.S. authority and we had no intention of leaving the Stars and Stripes there to become a souvenir for some unauthorized representative of the government of Lebanon.”

The problem was that the Lebanese army commanders could not get to the airport, because they had been thrown out of West Beirut. So at 8:15 a.m. a Muslim Lebanese army captain who happened to be hanging around the airport and a few other stragglers were rounded up to attend the ceremony. The Marines told me they did not know who half of them were or whether they were loyal to the government or some Muslim militia chieftain. To ensure that some official Lebanese was on hand, though, the Marines had Colonel Fahim Qortabawi, the Lebanese army officer responsible for liaison with the Americans, flown in from East Beirut by helicopter.

Colonel Faulkner delivered a few brief remarks thanking the Lebanese for their cooperation, and then he requested that he and his men be allowed to “strike our colors,” which were hanging on a flagstick on the wall, crossed with a red, white, and green Lebanese flag. The Marine officers reached up, carefully took the Stars and Stripes off the flagstick, and began to fold it with great dignity into a precise triangle, according to United States military regulations.

“We did it all with the dignity the U.S. flag deserves,” Colonel Van Huss told me proudly. “The Lebanese army officers were watching us very carefully, and well, I guess they were a bit overwhelmed by what we were doing.”

Just as the American officers finished folding their flag, Colonel Qortabawi reached up, grabbed the Lebanese flag from the wall, folded it in no apparent pattern, and handed it to Colonel Faulkner. “Please,” he said. “You might as well take our flag, too.”

Looking chagrined, Colonel Qortabawi, who was a Maronite, then turned to Colonel Van Huss and said, “You are leaving?”

“Yes, we are really leaving,” answered the Marine officer. “Our eastern positions have already been vacated. We’re in fallback positions now … and we’re in the final throes of the embarkation. Yes, Colonel Qortabawi, we are really leaving.”

Qortabawi, with downcast eyes, then got to the point. “I have no way home,” he told his Marine hosts. “To go home I have to go through Muslim checkpoints. [Maybe] you can get me to the Ministry of Defense by helo ride?”

“Yes, we can do that,” Van Huss recalled telling the hapless Lebanese army officer. “So Colonel Qortabawi left with us. We gave him a helo ride to the Ministry of Defense. He linked back up to [the Lebanese army command] and it was all very final and over.”
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Re: Mrs. Kay Griggs on How the Government Works

Postby admin » Thu Jan 04, 2018 5:59 am

Barry McCaffrey
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 1/3/18

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Image
Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy
In office
February 29, 1996 – January 20, 2001
President Bill Clinton
Preceded by Lee Brown
Succeeded by Ed Jurith (Acting)
Personal details
Born Barry Richard McCaffrey
November 17, 1942 (age 75)
Taunton, Massachusetts, U.S.
Education United States Military Academy (BS)
American University (MA)
Military service
Allegiance United States
Service/branch United States Army
Years of service 1964–1996
Rank General
Commands 24th Infantry Division
U.S. Southern Command

Barry Richard McCaffrey (born November 17, 1942) is a former United States Army General and current news commentator and business consultant. He received three Purple Heart medals for injuries sustained during his service in Vietnam, two Silver Stars for valor, and two Distinguished Service Crosses — the second-highest U.S. Army award for valor.[1] He was inducted into U.S. Army Ranger Hall of Fame at U.S. Army Infantry Center at Fort Benning in 2007.[2] He served as an adjunct professor at U.S. Military Academy and its Bradley Professor of International Security Studies from 2001 to 2008. He received West Point Association of Graduates of the United States Military Academy's Distinguished Graduate Award in 2010.[3][4] He is currently a military analyst for NBC and MSNBC as well as president of his own consulting firm, BR McCaffrey Associates.[5] He serves on many boards of directors of national corporations. He is an outspoken advocate for insurance parity, for drug courts[6][7] and veterans' courts,[8] and is a frequent speaker at conferences.[9][10]

Education

McCaffrey graduated from Phillips Academy, Andover in 1960 and U.S. Military Academy (Class of 1964) and earned an M.A. in Civil Government from American University in 1970. He also attended Harvard University's National Security Program and Business School Executive Education Program.[11][12] His postgraduate military education included United States Army War College, Command and General Staff College, Defense Language Institute's program in Vietnamese,[13] and Armor School Advanced Course.[14]

Military career

Following his graduation from West Point in 1964, McCaffrey was commissioned into the infantry.[15]

His combat tours included action in the Dominican Republic with 82nd Airborne Division in 1965, advisory duty with Army of the Republic of Vietnam from 1966–67, and company command with 1st Cavalry Division from 1968–69.[15] During the course of his service, he was twice awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the Purple Heart three times for injuries sustained in combat, and the Silver Star twice.[13]

General McCaffrey's peacetime assignments included tours as an instructor at U.S. Military Academy from 1972–75, Assistant Commandant at U.S. Army Infantry School; Deputy U.S. Representative to NATO; Assistant Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS); and Director of Strategic Plans and Policy, Joint Chiefs of Staff.[15]

"Left Hook" attack

During Operation Desert Storm, McCaffrey commanded 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized). Under his command, the division conducted the "left hook" attack 370 km into Iraq, leading to decisive battle victory in the First Gulf War and also putting troops in place for the final battle of the war.

In his book "Prodigal Soldiers," James Kitfield recounted McCaffrey's "left hook" attack plan. McCaffrey commanded "two entire Army corps deep into Iraqi territory. If successful, and no army in history had ever moved a force that size over 300 miles on the time line General Norman J. Schwarzkopf was reciting, the move would flank the Republican Guard divisions in Kuwait and cut off all avenues of retreat ... The briefing left McCaffrey slightly stunned. He was part of the flanking force, and his mind was already starting to race over a logistics problem the war colleges would call a potential war-stopper, yet he had one overriding thought: We're not going to fight a war of attrition, or a limited war. It was a revelation. He saw now that the Army was going to play to its strengths and the enemy's weakness. By God, we learned. We learned (from the lessons of Vietnam)."[16]

In their book "The Generals' War: The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf,"[17] Michael R. Gordon and General Bernard E. Trainor wrote more about the "left hook" attack:

"It was the largest air assault in Army history and gave the (French 6th) Division a staging area for launching attacks in western Iraq and attacking Highway 8, the east-west route along the Euphrates (River).

"Racing ahead with his fuel trucks, McCaffrey's division was roaring northward, with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment providing protection to its flank. McCaffrey was speeding toward the Euphrates River at a remarkable 30 miles an hour over rocky terrain. McCaffrey was hurrying to link up with Peay's 101st, cut Highway 8, and then turn east to attack the Republican Guard ...

"As dawn broke, Rhame's 1st Mechanized Infantry Division clear lanes through the minefields and, instead of sending troops to clear the trenches of Iraqi soldiers, Rhame sent bulldozers to plow over the trench line, entombing any Iraqis who resisted or were too slow to surrender.

"The armored bulldozers were not a novel killing machine. They were used in both World War II and Vietnam for the same purpose. Nor were they more brutal than the pounding the Iraqi front lines took from artillery, tons of bombs, fuel-air explosives, and napalm used by allied forces. The divisions efforts to publicize its exploits after the war backfired when news reports said that thousands of Iraqi troops may have been buried alive. A classified log prepared by the division officiers at the time, however, put the number of Iraqis buried at 150, and after the war, the Iraqis managed to unearth only several dozen bodies. ...

"On the morning of February 27 (1991), Barry McCaffrey flew to Jalibah airfield to meet with his commanders. Located 30 miles south of Highway 8, the east-west road that ran to Basra, Jalibah had been one of Iraq's main airfields during the war. But now it was pockmarked with the burned and twisted wreckage of Iraqi MiG-29s and other fighters that McCaffrey's 24th Division had blasted in a four-hour fight to seize the airfield.

"After leaving his helicopter, the general made his way over to Col. Paul Kern, the commander of the division's 2nd brigade. Kern had deployed his command post -- to M-577 armored personnel carriers full of communications equipment -- within a protective cordon of M1 tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles, which guarded the perimeter of the airfield.

"No general was more aggressive than McCaffrey. He had been badly wounded in Vietnam, but it had not shaken his confidence or his ardor for battle. Unlike the VII Corps planners, McCaffrey was not in awe of the Iraqis. Dug into their fighting holes and with no air force to protect them, the Iraqi army was like a bunch of 'tethered goats,' McCaffrey recalled after the war.

"Schwarzkopf had a soft spot for the general, who commanded his old unit. Just before McCaffrey's division moved to its attack positions in the Saudi desert, Schwarzkopf flew up to give a pep talk to one of the division's reconnaissance teams. Before returning to his helicopter, Schwarzkopf grabbed McCaffrey by his uniform. With tears welling in his eyes, the commander said to McCaffrey that once the ground war started, there would be no stopping until the Army had destroyed the Republican Guard. President (George H. W.) Bush has assured Schwarzkopf of that. That moment was chiseled in McCaffrey's memory.

"When it came time to launch the ground war, McCaffrey issued a top secret attack order that seemed like a call to a holy war and alluded to the assurance he had received from Schwarzkopf. 'Soldiers of the Victory Division -- we now begin a great battle to destroy an aggressor army and free two million Kuwaiti people,' the order read. 'We will fight under the American flag and with the authority of the United Nations. By force of arms, we will make the Iraqi war machine surrender the country they hold prisoner. There will be no turning back when we attack into battle."[17]


A subsequent Rand Corporation report, "Technology's Child: Schwarzkopf and Operation Desert Storm,"[18] further described the battle plan:

"Since Saddam had most of his forces in southern Kuwait and along the Gulf coast to the east, the ground plan called for moving VII Corps several hundred miles in a wide arc to the west, and attacking through Iraq to hit the Republican Guard. It would amount to a gigantic left hook. Massive, swift, crushing tank attacks were central to the plan ... The idea was to force Saddam to move his hundreds of thousands of troops from dug-in positions so they could be picked-off with superior US air and ground fire ... For deception, Schwarzkopf instructed XVIII Airborne Corps and VII Corps to maintain their forces in assembly areas near Kuwait, to keep Iraqi forces focused on those two avenues of approach. As soon as the air war began, the Iraqis would be pinned down and both corps would shift laterally several hundred miles to the west without interference ... The ground war lasted just 100 hours before President Bush, in consultation with his military commanders, called a halt. Of 42 Iraqi divisions in the theater at the beginning of the war, 27 were destroyed and an additional six were rendered combat-ineffective. However, (more than) half the Republican Guard, including the nearly intact Hammurabi Division, escaped the enveloping "left hook," leaving a legacy of controversy about whether General Frederick Franks’ VII Corps had moved quickly enough. When the Iraqis finally fled from Kuwait, they jammed the road north out of the city with vehicles and booty, which the coalition air power then blocked and savaged. The vivid descriptions of the resulting carnage were probably a significant factor in the decision to halt military operations.",[18] extensively quoting from It Doesn't Take A Hero, the autobiography of General Schwarzkopf with Peter Petre.[19]


Describing the "left hook" battle plan and its aftermath, Schwarzkopf and Petre wrote, "General McCaffrey's mission was to leapfrog his units 300 miles north and to occupy an 80-mile-by-60-mile zone with the Marines digging in around Al Jubayl. General J. H. Binford Peay III was to establish bases along McCaffrey's left flank, from which his helicopters and troops could defend a 100-mile arc of desert to the north and west. A brigade of the 101st would also serve temporarily as a screen, ranging forward of the U.S. positions to detect, delay, and disrupt any enemy attack. Eventually, Colonel Doug Starr's 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment would arrive to take over that mission ... On Saturday morning, March 2 (1991), two days after to shooting supposedly had stopped, I came into the war room (in Riyadh) to discover that we'd just fought a major battle in the Euphrates valley. Evidently, two battalions of the Republican Guard had gotten tired of waiting to cross the pontoon bridge as Basra the night before and had headed west on Highway 8. Twice, they'd encountered Bradley Fighting Vehicles operating as scouts for the 24th Mech(anized Division, under McCaffrey's command) and both times had opened fire with antitank missiles. At dawn, they'd run into a U.S. blocking position and had opened fire again. McCaffrey had replied with a full-scale tank and helicopter counterattack, smashing the Iraqi column and taking 3,000 prisoners without suffering a single casualty. To me, this wasn't altogether bad news: the Republican Guard had shown characteristic arrogance by spotting what looked like a weak U.S. force -- not suspecting that an entire U.S. Army division was in the way -- and deciding, "Let's shoot 'em up." I was glad that the President's cease-fire statement had reserved our forces the right to shoot back if attacked. Yet the incident underscored the urgency of setting cease-fire terms that would definitively separate the two sides."[19][20]

On February 27, 1991, C-SPAN documented the terms of President George H. W. Bush's cease-fire statement, including the terms of engagement:

"With the remarks, 'Kuwait is liberated. Iraq’s army has been defeated,' President Bush began his announcement to the nation on the U.S. and coalition forces' victory in the Persian Gulf war. He cautioned against euphoria, but urged the nation to continue their support for the U.S. armed forces serving in the Middle East. He called for Iraq to release all coalition forces' P.O.W.'s and to comply with all United Nations resolutions concerning Kuwait. President Bush also announced a conditional cease-fire to take place at midnight, E.S.T., which is 8:00 A.M. Iraqi time. The cease-fire would allow Iraqi forces to return to Iraq from Kuwait as long as they did not fire upon coalition forces."[21]


In a paper entitled "Detecting Massed Troops with the French SPOT Satellites: A Feasibility Study for Cooperative Monitoring,"[22] Vipin Gupta of Sandia National Laboratories and LTC George Harris, Commander, 250th Military Intelligence Battalion, extensively described and illustrated pre-battle and post-battle satellite images:

• "The forward deployment positions and attack maneuvers of the coalition ground forces" (a map from McCaffrey's post-battle report, "24th Infantry Division Ground Operations")
• "Deployment of the 24th Mechanized Infantry Division from its forward assembly area at As Sarrar to its pre-attack position at Nisab. 75% of the division’s tentage was left behind at As Sarrar in order to enhance the division’s attack mobility ... (and) the role the 24th played in the left hook maneuver" (also from McCaffrey's report)
• "Features identified in the 20 August 1990 SPOT image along the Saudi-Iraqi border near the towns of Nisab and Ash Shubah. The image was acquired three weeks after Iraq invaded Kuwait when no coalition forces were present in this area."
• "Features identified in the 29 January 1991 SPOT image covering the same ground area ... acquired one day after the US 24th Mechanized Infantry Division completed its deployment into the area"
• "20 August 1990 SPOT image around Ash Shubah town ... (the) enhanced image clearly shows the town, Tapline Road, and oil pipeline. It also shows most of the Bedouin trails"
• "Enlargement of 29 January 1991 SPOT image around Ash Shubah town. Acquired two weeks after the initiation of Operation Desert Storm, the image shows numerous new encampments west of Ash Shubah as well as several single pixel features which were inferred to be small tents and vehicles. The enlargement also shows a new primary supply route and bypass road. The inset is a map section from the historical archives that show the specific units that were deployed near Ash Shubah"
• "Enlargement of 29 January 1991 SPOT image showing two fan shaped features in the open desert. Based on the layout and the trail patterns, the features were identified as firing ranges for mechanized units. The image shows the entrance at the central hub, the firing stations, and the direction of fire. The larger range could accommodate a mechanized company and the smaller range could accommodate a mechanized platoon"
• "Enlargement of 29 January 1991 SPOT image showing linear traces next to a north-south trail. The trace configuration is consistent with the appearance of vehicle lines positioned close together for protection, line-of-sight communication, and possible forward attack advancement"

The paper concluded, "The positive identification of troop positions was facilitated by the dramatic appearance of numerous secured encampments and the sudden disappearance of normal civilian traffic ... The observation of the new, redundant trail network further suggested that the new inhabitants in the area were indeed military forces ... After these forces were found, more detailed analysis revealed the logistical areas, training grounds, and troop positions. Each feature was identified from its topographic location, layout, configuration, and associated level of activity."[22]

On November 13, 1993, CDR Daniel S. Zazworsky, USN, wrote an unclassified analysis of the "left hook" attack,[23] saying, "Major General McCaffrey, commander of the 24th Infantry Division (Mech), also recognized the importance of capturing enemy resources for his own forces use. On the leading edge of the left hook envelopment, he was bringing enough fuel with him in a huge logistics tail behind him. But he was hauling most of it in HEMTTs (heavy expanded-mobility tactical trucks) which themselves required huge amounts of fuel and, therefore, ordered his artillery gunners not to shoot Iraqi tank trucks or POL dumps or gas stations along the road. He told them 'We just might need the fuel too, and anyone who blows it up will answer to me.' While there is certainly utility in capturing enemy resources, the brevity of the war left it unclear whether or not LTGEN William G. Pagonis' and General McCaffrey's efforts would have been sufficient to enable the US to conduct a significantly prolonged offensive. Nor is it clear how useful enemy munitions and other equipment would have been. Perhaps General McCaffrey and Colonel Paul Kern, commander of 2nd Brigade, gave us a hint to the answer to that question. Within hours of locating a huge Iraqi stockpile of fuel-air bombs at Jalibah airfield inside Iraq, Kern had them destroyed them. Later, McCaffrey indicated that it would take a week to destroy all the ammunition dumps and military supplies around the airfield ... Destroying captured enemy munitions conveys the message that they were either not needed...or not wanted. Lt. Colonel Dave Oberthaler, Logistics Staff Officer with the 24th Infantry Division (Mech) in the KTO (Kuwaiti Theater of Operations), also raises a valid concern with regard to captured Iraq fuel, food and drink - indicating that fear of contamination would have kept U.S. forces from using them. He also points out another problem with relying on captured enemy equipment. Often the destruction of that enemy equipment is a high priority. For example, captured Iraqi transportation equipment (primarily HEMTTs), would have been very useful to U.S. ground forces. However, these units were also a top priority target for the coalition air forces."[24][25]

Seymour Hersh's allegations

In an opinion column published on May 22, 2000, in The New Yorker entitled "Annals of War: Overwhelming Force,"[26] Seymour Hersh wrote that McCaffrey, whose pre–1991 record he praised extensively, may according to an unnamed source have commanded his troops to kill retreating Iraq soldiers after the ceasefire had been declared and then failed to properly investigate reports of killings of unarmed persons and an alleged massacre of hundreds of Iraqi POWs. Hersh's column quoted "senior officers decrying the lack of discipline and proportionality in the McCaffrey-ordered attack." One colonel told Hersh that it "made no sense for a defeated army to invite their own death ... It came across as shooting fish in a barrel. Everyone was incredulous."[27]

In the same issue of New Yorker, its editor-in-chief David Remnick wrote an editorial supporting Hersh's research and conclusions.[28] Remnick wrote, "In Iraq, General McCaffrey led the 24th Infantry Division in an epic "left hook" tank drive, designed to shut off an Iraqi retreat from Kuwait. He and his troops won extraordinary praise for a four-day march under bleak conditions. Hersh, however, in the course of conducting hundreds of interviews and reviewing thousands of pages of government and Army documents, found a number of operations by men under McCaffrey's command that are, at a minimum, unsettling. His detailed account, published here this week, describes how, on March 2, 1991 - two days after the declaration of a ceasefire, when Iraqi forces were in flight, McCaffrey attacked a line of retreating Iraqi vehicles and troops, unleashing an assault that lasted several hours and was all but uncontested. In testimony before the Senate and in written answers to questions from Hersh (whose repeated requests for an interview were declined), McCaffrey said that his men were fired on and he had no choice but to respond in force-with the full might of his division."

Remnick continued, "Many military men have supported General McCaffrey's version of events, but many officers and enlisted men who have talked to Hersh for the record say either that there was no Iraqi fire at all or that there was so little, and of such minor consequence, that it hardly warranted the onslaught -- and bloodshed -- that followed. The question is one of proportionality: Did an Army general (who is now, as it happens, in the President's Cabinet) go too far?"[28]

Subsequently, an Army investigation cleared McCaffrey of any wrongdoing. Hersh dismissed the findings of the investigation, writing that "few soldiers report crimes, because they don't want to jeopardize their Army careers." Hersh describes his interview with Private First Class Charles Sheehan-Miles, who later published a novel about his experience in the Gulf: "When I asked Sheehan-Miles why he fired, he replied, 'At that point, we were shooting everything. Guys in the company told me later that some were civilians. It wasn't like they came at us with a gun. It was that they were there – 'in the wrong place at the wrong time.' Although Sheehan-Miles is unsure whether he and his fellow-tankers were ever actually fired upon during the war, he is sure that there was no significant enemy fire: 'We took some incoming once, but it was friendly fire,' he said. 'The folks we fought never had a chance.' He came away from Iraq convinced that he and his fellow-soldiers were, as another tanker put it, part of 'the biggest firing squad in history.'"[27]

McCaffrey's and Colin Powell's rebuttals to Hersh's allegations

McCaffrey denied the charges that on three occasions, he or his men of the 24th infantry division either fired on enemy soldiers who had surrendered in an "unprovoked attack", or "went too far" in responding to a non-existent threat. He attacked what he called Hersh's "revisionist history" of the Gulf War. BBC reported that "General McCaffrey said an army investigation had previously cleared him of any blame and he accused the New Yorker of maligning young soldiers.... White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said President Bill Clinton felt the charges were unsubstantiated."[29]

According to Georgie Anne Geyer of the Chicago Tribune from May 2000, Hersh’s accusations were disputed by a number of military personnel, who later claimed to have been misquoted by the journalist. She argues that this may have been Hersh’s misguided attempt to break another My Lai story, and that he "could not possibly like a man such as McCaffrey, who is so temperamentally and philosophically different from him…” Finally, she suggests that Hersh may also have been motivated to attack the general for McCaffrey’s role as the drug czar.[30]

Hersh also alleged that McCaffrey violated Department of Defense policy by denying reporters access to his battle plans and the actual battleground. In fact, however, McCaffrey welcomed famed war correspondent Joseph L. Galloway. On May 26, 2006, Knight Ridder Washington, D.C. bureau chief John Walcott, honored Galloway, saying, "Mike Ruby, Merrill McLoughlin, and I sent Joe (Galloway) to Schwarzkopf's headquarters in Riyadh with the kind of simple request that editors like to make: Go get the best seat in the war ... General Schwarzkopf sent Joe to Maj. Gen. Barry McCaffrey's 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized), which he said had the most complex and dangerous assignment in his battle plan, the famous left hook. Almost as soon as he arrived at division headquarters, Joe was ushered into the TOC, the Tactical Operations Center. The cover was lifted off the division's battle maps, which of course were Top Secret-and-change ... Joe asked General McCaffrey why he could see the secret battle plan. "I trust you because Norm trusts you," Barry replied, 'but most of all, I trust you because you're coming with us.'"[31]

Lieutenant General Steven Arnold, interviewed by Hersh for the article, was one of the officers who later claimed to have been misquoted. He wrote to the editor of The New Yorker, saying, "I know that my brief comments in the article were not depicted in an entirely accurate manner and were taken out of context…. When the Iraqi forces fired on elements of the 24th Infantry Division, they were clearly committing a hostile act. I regret having granted an interview with Mr. Hersh. The tone and thrust of the article places me in a position of not trusting or respecting General Barry McCaffrey, and nothing could be further from the truth."[32]

Similar criticism of Hersh's allegations came from General Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Iraq War. In a May 2000 interview with Sam Donaldson for the television news program This Week, Powell described the Hersh article as "attempted character assassination on General McCaffrey."

On May 22, 2000, The New Yorker discussed Hersh's allegations, as did Newsweek on May 29, 2000. "Five-Hour Air, Armor Assault - The March 2 attack on the Iraqi Republican Guard “Hammurabi” tank division is ordered by Army General Barry McCaffrey (the general who commanded the already-famous “left hook” maneuver days before — see February 23, 1991 and After), in response to what McCaffrey says is an attack on his forces with rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). The decision surprises some in the Allied command structure in Saudi Arabia and causes unease among civilian and military leaders in Washington, who worry about the public relations ramifications of an attack that comes days after a cease-fire was implemented (see February 28, 1991). McCaffrey himself later calls the attack “one of the most astounding scenes of destruction I have ever participated in.” The “Hammurabi” division is obliterated in the assault."[33]

Military career after the Gulf War

General McCaffrey's last command in the Army was United States Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), the unified command responsible for U.S. military activities in Central America and South America. He commanded SOUTHCOM, whose headquarters were then in the Republic of Panama, from 1994 to 1996. Besides managing military personnel, as part of his duties in Panama, McCaffrey supported humanitarian operations for over 10,000 Cuban refugees as part of Operation Safe Haven from 8 September 1994 - 15 March 1995 at Empire Range, Panama.[34] It was also during his last military position that he created the first Human Rights Council and Human Rights Code of Conduct for U.S. Military Joint Command.[35] He wrote in August 1995 in "Human Rights and the Commander" in Joint Force Quarterly, "There is a common assumption that respect for an enemy’s soldiers and its civilian populace can stand in the way of a successful military campaign. Instead, respect for human rights increases the efficacy of security forces, both military and law enforcement."[36]

McCaffrey was the youngest and most highly decorated four-star general in the army at the time of his retirement from the military in 1996.[37]

On June 1, 1996, at the commencement ceremony at United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, Secretary of Defense William Perry commended McCaffrey's performance during the Gulf War. Perry said, "Whatever else is required of you in your Army career, you will first of all need to be a warrior. And you could find no better role model than Barry McCaffrey. Barry became one of America's greatest warriors. He led forces into combat in Vietnam, where he was grievously wounded. In Desert Storm, General McCaffrey's 24th Infantry Division led the famous left hook that caught the Iraqi army by surprise, and led America to one of its most convincing battlefield victories ever. He then went to SOUTHCOM at a crucial time and seized the opportunities presented by the ascendancy of democracy in our hemisphere. General McCaffery's attributes as a warrior -- guts, brains and tenacity -- are key to success on today's battlefield. Now he is putting those same skills to work as a civilian, leading America's war against drugs."[38][39]

On February 17, 2003, Mark Mazzetti and Kevin Whitelaw, in an article entitled "Six Deadly Fears: The U.S. military is confident of victory in Iraq–but at what price?" in U.S. News and World Report, quoted McCaffrey, "whose 24th Mechanized Infantry Division helped execute the famous 'left hook' attack against an Iraqi Army stronger than today's in Operation Desert Storm, puts it this way: "The Iraqis have no good military options. There is no technique, no tool that they can now adopt that will have any military significance on the outcome of the conflict ... Most likely, Saddam would use artillery-delivered mustard gas and nerve agents against U.S. ground elements advancing on Baghdad. If so, says McCaffrey, 'it's going to create conditions of abject misery, but it will have no impact on the pace of the operation.'"[40][41]

ONDCP Director

Barry McCaffrey was director of Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) under President Bill Clinton from 1996 to 2001. He was confirmed unanimously by the U.S. Senate on February 29, 1996.[42] As director of ONDCP, McCaffrey sat in President Clinton's Cabinet.[43]

McCaffrey came to this position with experience interdicting drug smugglers from South America, as head of the Southern Command.[44] He disliked the metaphor of a "war" on drugs, preferring to call it a malignancy for which he advocated treatment; at the same time, he also headed an initiative that began in 1999 to eliminate coca farming in Colombia.[44]

As director of ONDCP, McCaffrey wrote and published the first "National Drug Control Strategy".[45] The book-length white paper proposed a comprehensive 10-year plan; profiled drug abusers and trends in youth drug abuse; listed health consequences; estimated the cost of drug-related crime; recognized that illegal drugs remain widely available; presented strategic goals and objectives for demand and supply reduction and measures of effectiveness; and proposed a comprehensive approach including initiatives aimed at youth and initiatives to reduce drug-related crime and violence, to reduce health and social problems, to shield America's frontiers, and to reduce drug availability; and asked for resources to implement the strategy.[46][47][48]

Paid anti-drug messages in TV programs

During McCaffrey's tenure, ONDCP implemented a policy of buying paid anti-drug advertising on television and also paying television producers to embed anti-drug messages into major television programs. WB network's senior vice president for broadcast standards Rick Mater acknowledged, "The White House did view scripts. They did sign off on them – they read scripts, yes."[43] Running the campaign for the ONDCP was Alan Levitt, who estimated that between 1998 and 2000 the networks received nearly $25 million in benefits.[43] One example was with Warner Brothers' show, Smart Guy. The original script portrayed two young people using drugs at a party. Originally depicted as cool and popular, after input from the drug office, "We showed that they were losers and put them [hidden away to indulge in shamed secrecy] in a utility room. That was not in the original script."[43] Other shows including ER, Beverly Hills, 90210, Chicago Hope, The Drew Carey Show and 7th Heaven also put anti-drug messages into their stories.[43]

Details about the program were published by Salon on January 13, 2000.[43] McCaffrey defended the program, saying that “We plead guilty to using every lawful means to save America’s children”, and President Clinton defended McCaffrey.[49] Clinton said on January 14, 2000, "[I]t’s my understanding that there’s nothing mandatory about this, that there was no attempt to regulate content, or tell people what they had to put into it – of course, I wouldn’t support that."[50] McCaffrey opposed efforts in Congress to extend the national anti-drug media campaign to include messages against underage drinking.[44]

Comments on the War on Terror and the Iraq War

McCaffrey has harshly criticized American treatment of detainees during the War on Terror. According to McCaffrey: "We should never, as a policy, maltreat people under our control, detainees. We tortured people unmercifully. We probably murdered dozens of them during the course of that, both the armed forces and the C.I.A."[51][52] He "supports an investigation of the government lawyers who knowingly advocated illegal torture, and he specifically cited Bush's White House counsel and attorney general in the same discussion, emphasizing that 'we better find out how we went so wrong.'"[53]

In June 2005, McCaffrey surveyed Iraq on behalf of U.S. Central Command and wrote an optimistic report afterwards.[54] In the report, McCaffrey described U.S. senior military leadership team as superb and predicted the insurgency will reach its peak from January-to-September 2006, allowing for U.S. force withdrawals in the late summer of 2006. A year later, however, after visiting Iraq again, his assessment was grim: "Iraq is abject misery ... I think it's a terribly dangerous place for diplomats and journalists and contractors and Iraqi mothers. Trying to go about daily life in that city is a real nightmare for these poor people." He called Abu Ghraib "the biggest mistake that happened so far."[55] In an official memorandum,[56] McCaffrey nevertheless expressed optimism about the operation's longer term future:

"The situation is perilous, uncertain, and extreme – but far from hopeless. The U.S. Armed Forces are a rock. This is the most competent and brilliantly led military in a tactical and operational sense that we have ever fielded ... There is no reason why the U.S. cannot achieve our objectives in Iraq. Our aim must be to create a viable federal state under the rule of law which does not: enslave its own people, threaten its neighbors, or produce weapons of mass destruction. This is a 10-year task. We should be able to draw down most of our combat forces in 3–5 years. We have few alternatives to the current U.S. strategy, which is painfully but gradually succeeding. This is now a race against time. Do we have the political will, do we have the military power, will we spend the resources required to achieve our aims?"


His assessment noted several negative areas as well as very positive areas in the struggle for democracy in the country. McCaffrey returned a third time in March 2007 and followed the visit with a third memorandum.[57] The grimness of the 2006 assessment was repeated, additionally asserting a concern about the effect of the continuing war on the readiness of the small-sized U.S. military. He tempered his optimism about the future, saying, "There are encouraging signs that the peace and participation message does resonate with many of the more moderate Sunni and Shia warring factions."

Other military analysis

In April 2008, New York Times published a front-page report by David Barstow confirming that military analysts hired by ABC, CBS and NBC to present observations about the conduct of the war in Iraq had undisclosed ties to the Pentagon and/or military contractors.[58] McCaffrey was "at the heart of the scandal" detailed by Barstow.[59] In late November 2008, the New York Times published another front-page article by Barstow, this time specifically profiling General McCaffrey. It detailed his free movement between roles as a paid advocate for defense companies, media analyst and a retired officer.[58] An earlier report[60] with some of the same information had appeared in The Nation in April 2003 but was not widely picked up. Specifically, McCaffrey signed a contract with an undisclosed equity stake and retainer to represent Defense Solutions to American military leadership. Within days after signing the contract, McCaffrey sent a proposal directly to David H. Petraeus, then the commanding general in Iraq, recommending Defense Solutions and its offer to supply Iraq 5,000 armored vehicles from former Soviet bloc countries. Subsequently, McCaffrey would continue to advocate the Defense Solutions proposal over equipping the Iraqi Army with American-made equipment. [1] McCaffrey and his consulting firm BR McCaffrey Associates LLC responded to The Times piece, stating that he is "absolutely committed to objective, non-partisan public commentary." The response highlighted his military record, as well as his history of criticizing the execution of the Iraq War and specifically Rumsfeld.[61] Journalist Glenn Greenwald later wrote that there had been "extensive collaboration between NBC and McCaffrey to formulate a coordinated response to David Barstow's story."[62]

On January 24, 2009, in an article entitled "The Generals’ Second Careers,"[63] New York Times Public Editor (ombudsman) Clark Hoyt discussed Barstow's allegations. He wrote,

"The Times’s [first] report [was] a 7,500-word article, 20 photographs and 5 graphics. Nine photos of retired officers talking on television — four of them on NBC or MSNBC — dominated the front page. They included the most celebrated of all military analysts, Barry R. McCaffrey, the retired Army four-star general who just happened to be the man excluded from the Pentagon’s information program for criticizing Donald Rumsfeld’s management of the Iraq war. [...] The article barely mentioned McCaffrey and another NBC analyst, Gen. Wayne Downing, who died in 2007, yet included them in what a reader could reasonably interpret as a virtual rogue’s gallery of analysts spouting the Pentagon line.

"On Nov. 30, under the [second] front-page headline 'One Man’s Military-Industrial-Media Complex,' Barstow wrote that McCaffrey represented an exclusive club of mostly retired generals whose 'war commentary can fit hand in glove with undisclosed commercial interests[.]"

[...]

"Barstow said he never intended to say that McCaffrey did anything illegal or unethical. He said he was describing how the world works and raising the issue of disclosure of potential conflicts."

[...]

"McCaffrey, a much-decorated, thrice-wounded war hero, unhappily became the symbol of an entrenched system of insider access, overlapping interests and lack of public disclosure. It is an issue of high interest in Barack Obama’s Washington. Even as they testified to McCaffrey’s integrity, some of his most ardent supporters recognized that the system presented multiple opportunities for conflicts of interest. [...] McCaffrey said he will follow any disclosure rules, as long as they apply to everybody, not just retired military officers."[63]


Post-government service

After McCaffrey retired from government service at the end of the Clinton Administration, he continued to provide his expertise to a wide spectrum of clients. He is currently a military analyst for NBC and MSNBC,[5] and president of his own consulting firm, BR McCaffrey Associates.[64]

In October 2004, McCaffrey was elected by the board of directors of HNTB Corporation[65] to serve as the board chairman of a newly formed subordinate company, HNTB Federal Services. In January 2008, McCaffrey was elected to board of directors of The HNTB Companies, an employee-owned organization of infrastructure firms with 63 offices nationwide—known and respected for their work in transportation, tolls, bridges, aviation, rail, architecture and urban design and planning.

McCaffrey also serves on the boards of directors of Atlantic Council of the United States, DynCorp International, Global Linguist Solutions, McNeil Technologies, and CRC Health Group,[66] a nationwide for-profit chain of addiction treatment centers and behavioral therapy programs for related disorders.

He is also a member of Council on Foreign Relations, an Associate of the Inter-American Dialogue, a principal for Council on Excellence in Government, a member of the CSIS U.S.-Mexico Binational Council, chairman of Vietnam Veterans Memorial Education Center Advisory Board, a senior executive associate for Army Aviation Association of America, and a member of the board of advisors of National Infantry Foundation. McCaffrey also participates in U.S. Army Fires Center, Senior Field Artillery Advisory Council, at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.[12]

McCaffrey is an advocate for parity (coverage by health insurers of behavioral disorders coequal to their coverage of other diseases) and of drug courts[6][7] and veterans' courts[8] and is a frequent speaker at conferences.[9][67]

Honors and awards

• State Department Superior Honor Award, 1992, as member of principal negotiation team for the START II Nuclear Arms Control Treaty[12][68][69][70][71]
• August 27, 2002—Keynote speaker at the 2002 Innovative Government Forum (IGF) in Sacramento, California[72]
• May 6, 2003 -- "Barry McCaffrey; Excerpts from a Monitor Breakfast on the Long-Term Impact of the Iraq War, interviewed by David T. Cook for Christian Science Monitor[73]
• 2004 -- James Cardinal Gibbons Medal (Highest Honor), The Catholic University of America, awarded to honor any person who, in the opinion of the CUA Alumni Association's Board of Governors, has rendered distinguished and meritorious service to the Roman Catholic Church, the United States of America, or The Catholic University of America.[74]
• December 18, 2008 -- "Four-Star Gen. McCaffrey Given Key to City by Dearborn, MI Mayor O'Reilly"—reported by Channel 9, WAFB Detroit[75]
• February 12, 2009 -- "Transition to Power: Challenges Facing the New Administration Presentation to National Defense Industrial Association’s Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict 20th Annual Symposium & Exhibition"—presentation by Gen. McCaffrey[76]
• 2010 -- Government Security News Extraordinary Leadership and Service in Homeland Security Award[77]
• 2010 Distinguished Graduate Award, West Point Association of Graduates of the United States Military Academy[35]
• March 2012—General (Ret.) Alexander M. Haig Jr. Guardian of Liberty Award from West Point Society of Philadelphia[78]
• June 13, 2012—General McCaffrey was awarded the Martin and Toby Adler Distinguished Service Award in Palm Springs, CA from the College on Problems of Drug Dependence.[79]
• Honored Guest at West Point Society of New York 2012 Founder’s Day Celebration Dinner[80]
• United States Military Academy West Point Notable Graduates[81]
• Covered extensively in Shirley Ann Warshaw's book Presidential Profiles: The Clinton Years[82]
• Honorary Companion of the District of Columbia Commandery of the Military Order of Foreign Wars

See also

• Tan, Michelle—March 11, 2013 -- "McCaffrey: No good end in Afghanistan"—in Air Force Times*Naylor, Sean D. -- April 9, 2007 -- "McCaffrey: 'Little time left' for Iraq success"—in Air Force Times[83]
• Lubold, Gordon—November 27, 2006 -- "Quality of volunteer force deteriorating, McCaffrey says: 'We need 19-year-old boys and girls in good health'"—in Air Force Times[84]
• Baker, Glenn—March 2002 -- "Gens. McCaffrey and Wilhelm visit Cuba with CDI (Center for Defense Information) group"—in Defense Monitor[85]
• Naylor, Sean D. -- April 8, 1996 -- "McCaffrey's next challenge: Drugs"—in Army Times[86]
• Evers, Stacey—December 2, 1995 -- "Jane's interview (with US Southern Command Commander-in-Chief General Barry McCaffrey)"—in Jane's Defence Weekly[87]
• Hedrick, Miles—November 19, 1995 -- "Vietnam Lessons Made Good," in Daily Press—review of James Kitfield's book "Prodigal Soldiers: How the Generation of Officers Born of Vietnam Revolutionized the American Style of War"[88]
• Kitfield, James -- "Prodigal Soldiers: How the Generation of Officers Born of Vietnam Revolutionized the American Style of War"—extensively quotes McCaffrey[89][90]
• Hollis, Patrecia S. -- February 1994 -- "Artillery -- The most important factor on the battlefield: interview with LtGen Barry R. McCaffrey"—in Field Artillery[91]
• January 1994 -- "Lt. Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey Slated for USSOUTHCOM Post"—in Army[92]

References

1. "Clinton Names General McCaffrey as "Drug Czar" Nominee". National Drug Strategy Network - The Criminal Justice Foundation. 1996.
2. "US Army Ranger Hall of Fame" (PDF). US Army Ranger Hall of Fame. Retrieved October 28, 2013.
3. "2010 DISTINGUISHED GRADUATE AWARD GEN (R) BARRY MCCAFFREY '64". West Point Association of Graduates of the United States Military Academy. 2010.
4. Bartelt, Eric. “West Point Honors Five Distinguished Graduates”, The Official Homepage of the United States Army, News Archives (May 14, 2010).
5. "Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, USA (Ret.) MSNBC and Nightly News Military analyst". http://www.NBCnews.com. January 17, 2008.
6. Robert Weiner Associates (May 27, 2008). "Former Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey, Actress Melanie Griffith, National Drug Courts Assn,... -- re> ST. LOUIS, May 27 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --". prnewswire.com.
7. "Breaking Our Addiction to Prison". Huffington Post. July 27, 2009.
8. Henneberger, Melinda (December 2, 2013). "Veterans court program helps warriors battle addiction, mental health crises". The Washington Post.
9. http://www.phoenixhouse.org/wp-content/ ... -28-04.pdf
10. "For Immediate Release -- Robert Weiner Associates". weinerpublic.com.
11. "Home Speakers Profile Barry McCaffrey". World Affairs Council of Northern California. Retrieved October 18, 2013.
12. "NationalJournal.com". http://www.nationaljournal.com.
13. "Full Biography of General Barry R. McCaffrey, USA (Ret.)"(PDF). McCaffrey Associates. February 15, 2011.
14. Spencer C. Tucker (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Middle East Wars: The United States in the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq Conflicts: The United States in the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq Conflicts. ABL-CLIO. Retrieved October 18, 2013.
15. "General Barry R. McCaffrey". Strategic Studies Institute, US Army. Retrieved May 17, 2013.
16. "Prodigal Soldiers: How the Generation of Officers Born of Vietnam Revolutionized the American Style of War: James Kitfield: 9781574881233: Amazon.com: Books". amazon.com.
17. "Amazon.com: The Generals' War : The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf (9780316321006): Michael R. Gordon, General Bernard E. Trainor: Books". amazon.com.
18. bhttps://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/ ... .chap5.pdf
19. "It Doesn't Take a Hero". google.com.
20. "US-Iraq Cease-Fire Meeting - Video - C-SPAN.org". C-SPAN.org.
21. "Cease-Fire Persian Gulf War - Video - C-SPAN.org". C-SPAN.org.
22. http://cmc.sandia.gov/cmc-papers/sand98-85973.pdf
23. http://www.weinerpublic.com/ADA266598.pdf
24. Joseph L. Galloway (11 March 1991). "The Point of the Spear". U.S. News & World Report. p. 36.
25. "Interview with Lt. Colonel David P. Oberthaler, Operations Faculty, Naval War College, Newport, RI". 22 April 1993 and 5 May 1993. Check date values in: |date= (help);
26. "Overwhelming Force".
27. Forbes, Daniel (May 15, 2000). "Gulf War crimes?". Salon.
28. bhttp://www.jeffpolachek.com/petermcwil ... _story.txt
29. "General hits at Gulf 'insults'". BBC News. May 16, 2000.
30. Geyer, Georgie Anne (May 19, 2000). "Seymour Hersh's Gulf War misconceptions". Chicago Tribune. (subscription required)
31. "Editor & Publisher - Knight Ridder Bureau Chief Pays Tribute to Galloway at Retirement Party". editorandpublisher.com.
32. McCaffrey, Barry R. (May 22, 2000). "The New Yorker's Revisionist History". The Wall Street Journal. (subscription required)
33. http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/topi ... _personnel
34. John Pike. "Operation Safe Haven". globalsecurity.org.
35. "West Point Association of Graduates". westpointaog.org.
36. http://www.ndu.edu/press/militarization ... ement.html
37. "Gen. Barry McCaffrey, USA (Ret.) Distinguished Leader, International Affairs Expert and National Security Analyst, NBC News". NBC News. Retrieved October 18, 2013.
38. "Defense.gov News Release: Secretary of Defense William J. Perry's Commencement Remarks at West Point". defense.gov.
39. "Defense.gov News Article: Perry Outlines Diverse Role for Today's Military Leaders". defense.gov.
40. https://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/iraq ... /17six.htm
41. "CommUnity of Minds". synearth.net.
42. Fuller, Jim. "Global Cooperation Vital in Addressing Drug Concerns: An Interview with General Barry R. McCaffrey, Director, Office of National Drug Policy", Narcotics: A Global Challenge, p. 1 (Electronic Journals of the U.S. Information Agency, DIANE Publishing, July 1996).
43. Forbes, Daniel (January 13, 2000). "Prime Time Propaganda". Salon.
44. Fisher, Gary. Rethinking Our War on Drugs: Candid Talk about Controversial Issues (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006).
45. McCaffrey, Gen. Barry R. National Drug Control Strategy (DIANE Publishing, May 1, 1997).
46. National Drug Control Strategy.
47. The National Drug Control Strategy: 1996
48. Public Broadcasting System (PBS) (October 2000)."Frontline interview"
49. Szasz, Thomas. Pharmacracy: Medicine and Politics in America, p. 136 (Syracuse University Press, 2003).
50. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton, 2000-2001, January 1 to June 26, 2000, p. 62 (Government Printing Office, 2001).
51. Greenwald, Glenn (June 30, 2009). "The suppressed fact: Deaths by U.S. torture". Salon.
52. Horton, Scott (May 7, 2009). "The Bush Era Torture-Homicides". Harper's.
53. Melber, Ari (May 18, 2009). "Why the New Torture Defense Is a Good Offense". The Nation.
54. McCaffrey, Barry R. (June 27, 2005). "Trip Report – Kuwait and Iraq" (PDF). U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 24, 2005.
55. The Situation Room (transcript). CNN. May 30, 2006.
56. McCaffrey, Barry R. (May 4, 2006). "The Bottom Line – Observations from Iraqi Freedom". Chaos Manor Special Reports.
57. McCaffrey, Barry R. (March 26, 2007). "Visit Iraq and Kuwait, 9-16 March 2007" (PDF). Iraq's Inconvenient Truth. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 13, 2008.
58. Barstow, David (November 29, 2008). "One Man's Military-Industrial-Media Complex". The New York Times.
59. Greenwald, Glenn (April 21, 2009). "The Pulitzer-winning investigation that dare not be uttered on TV". Salon.
60. Benaim, Daniel; Motaparthy, Priyanka; Kumar, Vishesh (April 21, 2003). "TV's Conflicted Experts". The Nation.
61. "Barstow Article in New York Times Sun. Nov. 30 Not Supported by Facts of Gen. McCaffrey's Focus on Improving National Security". PR Newswire. November 30, 2011.
62. Greenwald, Glenn (December 1, 2008). "The ongoing disgrace of NBC News and Brian Williams". Salon.
63. Hoyt, Clark (January 25, 2009). "The Generals' Second Careers". The New York Times.
64. "BR McCaffrey Associates LLC". mccaffreyassociates.com.
65. "HNTB". hntb.com.
66. "Addiction Treatment Centers and Behavioral Therapy Programs for Related Disorders". crchealth.com.
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72. http://www.waterworld.com/articles/2002 ... forum.html
73. ""Barry McCaffrey ; Excerpts from a Monitor Breakfast on the Long-Term Impact of the Iraq War" by Cook, David T. - The Christian Science Monitor, May 6, 2003 - Online Research Library: Questia". questia.com.
74. "Catholic University of America - Cardinal Gibbons Medal". cuatoday.com.
75. "4-Star Gen. McCaffrey Given Key to City by Dearborn, MI Mayor O'Reilly". wafb.com. December 18, 2008.
76. http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2009SOLIC/McCaffrey.pdf
77. "Four star General Barry McCaffrey to receive the Government Security News 2010 Extraordinary Leadership and Service in Homeland Security Award". gsnmagazine.com.
78. "WP Society of Philadelphia – March 2012". mccaffreyassociates.com.
79. "CPDD Community Website". cpddblog.com.
80. "Awards & Announcements - BR McCaffrey Associates LLC". mccaffreyassociates.com.
81. "About West Point - Notable Graduates". usma.edu.
82. https://www.scribd.com/doc/126033163/Sh ... Bookos-org
83. "McCaffrey: 'Little time left' for Iraq success". dtic.mil.
84. "Quality of volunteer force deteriorating, McCaffrey says: 'We need 19-year-old boys and girls in good health'". dtic.mil.
85. "Gens. McCaffrey and Wilhelm visit Cuba with CDI (Center for Defense Information) group". dtic.mil.
86. "Jane's interview (with US Southern Command Commander-in-Chief General Barry McCaffrey)". dtic.mil.
87. "McCaffrey's next challenge: drugs". dtic.mil.
88. "Vietnam Lessons Made Good". tribunedigital-dailypress.
89. "Prodigal Soldiers: How the Generation of Officers Born of Vietnam Revolutionized the American Style of War: James Kitfield: 9781574881233: Amazon.com: Books". amazon.com.
90. "McCaffrey: No good end in Afghanistan". dtic.mil.
91. "Artillery--the most important factor on the battlefield: interview with LtGen Barry R. McCaffrey". dtic.mil.
92. "Lt. Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey Slated for USSOUTHCOM Post". dtic.mil.

Further reading

• McCaffrey, Barry R. (March 26, 2007). "Visit Iraq and Kuwait, 9-16 March 2007" (PDF). Iraq's Inconvenient Truth. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 13, 2008.
• Judd, Jackie; Jennings, Peter (June 15, 2000). "Investigation into Killing of Unarmed Iraqi Soldiers." ABC World News Tonight.
• McCaffrey, Barry R. (May 22, 2000). "The New Yorker's Revisionist History" (subscription required). Wall Street Journal.
• Hersh, Seymour (May 22, 2000). "Overwhelming Force". The New Yorker. pp. 49–82.
• Geyer, Georgie Anne (May 19, 2000). "Seymour Hersh's Gulf War Misconceptions" (subscription required). Chicago Tribune. p. 23.
• "General hits at Gulf 'insults'". BBC News. May 16, 2000.
• Stephanopoulos, George; Donaldson, Sam; Roberts, Cokie (May 21, 2000). "General Colin Powell Discusses His Group America's Promise." This Week. ABC News.
• Forbes, Daniel (May 15, 2000). "Gulf War Crimes?". Salon.
• (undated) National Security Experts Blog [2] National Journal
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Alfred M. Gray Jr.

Born June 22, 1928 (age 89)
Rahway, New Jersey, U.S.
Allegiance United States of America
Service/branch United States Marine Corps
Years of service 1950–1991
Rank General
Commands held 1st Radio Battalion
1st Battalion 2nd Marines
2nd Marine Regiment
4th Marine Regiment
33d Marine Amphibious Unit
2nd Marine Division
II Marine Expeditionary Force
Marine Forces Atlantic
Commandant of the Marine Corps
Battles/wars Korean War
Vietnam War
Awards Distinguished Service Medal
Silver Star
Legion of Merit
Bronze Star
Purple Heart

Alfred M. Gray Jr. (born June 22, 1928) is a retired United States Marine Corps general who served as the 29th Commandant of the Marine Corps from 1987–91. He retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after 41 years of service.

Early life and education

Gray was born on June 22, 1928 in Rahway, New Jersey and moved to the Jersey Shore community of Point Pleasant Beach.[1] He transferred from Rahway High School to Point Pleasant Beach High School, where he played baseball, basketball and football, graduating as part of the class of 1946.[2] He is the son of Emily and Alfred Mason Gray.[3]

He studied at Lafayette College, and received a Bachelor of Science degree from State University of New York. He has honorary degrees from Lafayette College, Monmouth University, Norwich University, the National Defense Intelligence College, and Franklin University.[4]

He married the former Jan Goss of Burlington, Vermont on July 20, 1980.[3][5]

Career

Gray enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 1950. He served overseas with Fleet Marine Force (FMF), Pacific, attaining the rank of sergeant before being commissioned a second lieutenant in April 1952. By definition, serving in the enlisted ranks prior to becoming an officer makes Gray a "mustang," which generally commands more respect in the Corps because of the combination of officer smarts and enlisted practicality. His early tours included service with 11th Marines and 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division in Korea, the 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and Headquarters Marine Corps, Washington, D.C., during which he saw service in Guantanamo Bay and Vietnam.[6]

As a Major, Gray joined the 12th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division in Vietnam in October 1965, serving concurrently as regimental communications officer, regimental training officer, and artillery aerial observer. He took command of the Composite Artillery Battalion and U.S. Free World Forces at Gio Linh in April 1967. In September 1967, Gray was reassigned to the III Marine Amphibious Force in Da Nang where he commanded the 1st Radio Battalion elements throughout I Corps until February 1968. Following a brief tour in the United States, he returned to Vietnam from June to September 1969 in conjunction with surveillance and reconnaissance matters in the I Corps area.

After his Vietnam War tour, Gray served as Commanding Officer of the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines, Battalion Landing Team 1/2; the 2nd Marine Regiment; the 4th Marine Regiment; and Camp Commander of Camp Hansen, Okinawa, Japan. While commanding the 33rd Marine Amphibious Unit and Regimental Landing Team-4, and concurrently serving as Deputy Commander, 9th Marines Amphibious Brigade, Gray directed the Southeast Asia evacuation operations in 1975.

Advanced to brigadier general in March 1976, General Gray served as Commanding General, Landing Force Training Command, Atlantic, and the 4th Marine Amphibious Brigade. Promoted to major general in February 1980, he assumed command of the 2nd Marine Division, FMF, Atlantic, Camp Lejueune, N.C., in June 1981. Following his promotion to lieutenant general on August 29, 1984, he was reassigned as Commanding General, FMF, Atlantic/Commanding General, II MEF, and Commanding General, FMF, Europe.

General Gray was promoted to general and became Commandant of the Marine Corps on July 1, 1987. His appointment as Commandant of the Marine Corps was recommended by Jim Webb, then Secretary of the Navy.[7]

Gray presided over changes in training in the 1970s with an emphasis on large-scale maneuver in desert and cold-weather environments, and changed Marine doctrine to one of maneuver warfare in the 1980s. This transformation from the Vietnam War-era is sometimes called the second enlightenment of the Marine Corps (the first being under MajGen John A. Lejeune), and included development of a robust maritime special operations capability, emphasis on the education of leaders, establishment of Marine Corps University, and development of a long-range desert operations capability. As a reminder that the primary role of every Marine is a rifleman, he had his official photograph taken in the Camouflage Utility Uniform, the only Commandant to have done so.

In popular culture

Gray appeared as himself on the Birthday Ball episode of Major Dad, a second season episode that celebrated the 215th birthday of the Marine Corps. Appearing on 60 Minutes in the 1980s, he addressed the graduating class at the Naval Academy. He summarized the core of leadership—civilian or military, "If you come and join my Marines, I want you to know that your 'number one' job is to take care of the men and women you are privileged to lead."

Namesake

The Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia is the home of the Alfred M. Gray Research Center. The center houses the Marine Corps Archives and Special Collections, the Quantico Base Library, and the research library for the Marine Corps University, as well a conference center. Gray routinely stops by to donate his recently read books.[citation needed]

Since 2004, as part of the Marine Corps Communications Awards Program, The General Alfred M. Gray Trophy is presented annually in honor of the 29th Commandant. The award bears his name due to his contributions to modernization in intelligence and communications. The Marine Corps University Foundation retains overall responsibility for funding the Trophy, and receives a grant from Sprint. A Marine Captain on active duty serving in the military occupational specialty (MOS) 0602 Communications Information Systems Officer within the operating forces or supporting establishment is recognized with the trophy each year at an awards ceremony.[8]

Awards and decorations

Defense Distinguished Service Medal w/ 1 bronze oak leaf cluster Navy Distinguished Service Medal w/ 1 gold award star Army Distinguished Service Medal Air Force Distinguished Service Medal
Coast Guard Distinguished Service Medal Silver Star Legion of Merit w/ valor device & 1 award star Bronze Star w/ valor device & 3 award stars
Purple Heart w/ 1 award star Meritorious Service Medal Joint Service Commendation Medal Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal
Combat Action Ribbon w/ 1 award star Presidential Unit Citation w/ 1 service star Navy Unit Commendation w/ 2 service stars Meritorious Unit Commendation w/ 1 service star
Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal National Defense Service Medal w/ 2 service stars Korea Service Medal w/ 1 service star Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal
Vietnam Service Medal w/ 1 service star Sea Service Deployment Ribbon Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation Vietnam Gallantry Cross unit citation
Vietnam Civil Actions unit citation United Nations Service Medal for Korea Vietnam Campaign Medal Republic of Korea War Service Medal
Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Identification Badge
In 1991, he was awarded the Distinguished Sea Service Award by the Naval Order of the United States.

Post–Marine Corps career

Image
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Alfred M. Gray (right) and James F. Amos (left) in June 2012.
U.S. Marine Corps Gen. James F. Amos, left, the 35th commandant of the Marine Corps, speaks with retired Gen. Alford A. Gray, the 29th commandant, during a rededication ceremony for Heywood Hall at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Quantico, Va., June 1, 2012. The facility, located at The Basic School, was named for Maj. Gen. Charles Heywood, the ninth commandant of the Marine Corps. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Mallory S. VanderSchans/Released)


Gray serves on the Board of Directors or Board of Advisors of a number of companies, including:[4]

• American Defense Systems, Inc. (since January 2008)
• American Public University System – serving as Chairman Emeritus and Member, Board of Trustees,[9]
• The Columbia Group, a privately held technical services support company that serves the U.S. military.
• GlobeSecNine, a privately held financial investment firm.
• Integrity Applications Inc., a privately held information assurance and security company.
• Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, a non-profit public policy research institute – serving as Senior Fellow and Chairman of the Board of Regents[4]
• Semper Fi Fund, a nonprofit that provides assistance to wounded and critically ill post-9/11 service members and their families (Chairman of the Board since its inception in 2004)
• SENSIS Corporation, a privately held commercial and defense radar company (since 2000)[4]
• SYS Technologies, Inc., an information solution company[4]
• Norwich University board of trustees.

Memberships

• 2nd Marine Division Association
• Marine Corps Association
• Khe Sanh Veterans, Inc.
• Marine Corps League

References

This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Marine Corps.

1. Tucker, Spencer C. Persian Gulf War Encyclopedia: A Political, Social, and Military History: A Political, Social, and Military History, p. 175. ABC-CLIO, 2014. ISBN 9781610694162. Accessed November 20, 2017. "Alfred M. Gray Jr. was born on June 22, 1928, at Rahway, New Jersey. Raised in Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey, he attended Lafayette College but dropped out of school and enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1950."
2. General Alfred M. Gray, USMC, Point Pleasant Beach School District. Accessed November 30, 2017. "Alfred Gray graduated in 1946. After transferring from Rahway High School into 10th grade he became one of the most active members of his class."
3. "Nomination of Lieutenant General Alfred M. Gray Jr. To Be Commandant of the Marine Corps". Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. June 16, 1987. Retrieved 2007-05-25.
4. "Profile: Alfred M. Gray, USMC". Forbes. 2008. Archived from the original on 8 December 2008. Retrieved October 26, 2008.
5. "Alfred M. Gray". Marquis Who's Who (fee required for BRC). Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2008. 2008. Document Number: K2016616305. Archived from the original on January 12, 2001. Retrieved October 26, 2008.
6. "General Alfred M. Gray Jr". Who's Who in Marine Corps History. History Division, United States Marine Corps. Retrieved 2010-12-29.
7. Cushman, John H. Jr. (June 5, 1987). "Activist General in Line for Top Marine Post". New York Times. Retrieved March 14, 2009.
8. "Marine Corps Order 1650.47" (PDF). Retrieved June 30, 2017.
9. "General Alfred M. Gray, (Retired USMC)". American Public University System. 2007-05-08. Archived from the original on 8 December 2008. Retrieved 2008-10-26.
• "General Alfred M. Gray, Chairman of the Board of Regents at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, is Inducted into the Hall of Honor at the National Cryptologic Museum"(Press release). Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. November 25, 2008. Retrieved December 13, 2008.
• "General Alfred M. Gray – Retired, 29th Commandant of the Marine Corps". United States Marine Corps. Retrieved January 23, 2009.
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Re: Mrs. Kay Griggs on How the Government Works

Postby admin » Fri Jan 05, 2018 12:39 am

USArms: A Periodic Report [WHEN SATIRE GETS OUT OF THE BOX]
By exporting our most sophisticated weapons worldwide, we have maintained high levels of production and dominated the global market

by Ashley Craddock
Mother Jones
September/October 1994 Issue
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/1994/09/usarms/#

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TO OUR SHAREHOLDERS, EMPLOYEES, AND CUSTOMERS:

Our share of global arms agreements quadrupled between 1988 and 1994.

Strong growth in lean years is the hallmark of competitiveness, and USArms has had a very competitive year. Some shareholders were worried by my campaign promise to “press for strong international limits on the dangerous and wasteful flow of weapons to troubled regions,” but I assure you that I have held fast to the course set by former CEOs Ronald Reagan and George Bush. The end of the Cold War has caused a drop in both domestic and Global arms demand; USArms has responded by spending shareholder money to develop export markets in Asia and the Middle East. As a result, our share of global conventional arms agreements rose from 17 percent in 1988 to 70 percent in 1993. And, thanks to the efforts of our marketing team, the majority of our 1993 sales were to a promising new market–the developing world. in order to ensure stability, unelected governments and developing countries feel the need to acquire more arms; we are reaching out to them vigorously. Where we once catered to Cold War political allegiances, we now aggressively respond to supply and demand. With Russia, our major competitor, still severely crippled, we can look forward to several years of spectacular growth.

BILL CLINTON, Chief Executive Officer



1993: A YEAR OF OUTSTANDING SALES GROWTH

By increasing a country’s offensive-strike capacity, combat aircraft promote more regional arms competition than any other USArms export.

USArms has been able to strengthen our worldwide market share through the efforts of our arms export and production team. Our marketing division -- the Pentagon, the State Department, and the Commerce Department (under the brilliant leadership of Secretary Ronald Brown) -- has worked with subsidiary defense contractors like Martin Marietta to expand international markets and sustain our industrial base.

With all of us pulling together, 1993 saw USArms leading the globe in exports of combat aircraft. We expect that 1995 will be the first year we sell more fighter planes to foreign governments than we do to our own. And by 1996, exports of these aircraft will outpace falling domestic sales by more than five to one.

LOW-INTENSITY CONFLICTS: A BOOMING MARKET

Low-intensity conflict merchandise: To suppress possible postelection rioting, Mexico recently purchased the Cobra Riot Control Vehicle from USArms.

Overall, trade in large weapons systems is in a downward trend. Therefore, we are diversifying our products and developing new marketing strategies.

Worldwide, many post-Cold War leaders are faced with conflict within their own borders, which they must quell as quickly and quietly as possible. The beginning of 1994 saw 18 full-scale ethnic wars raging, 38 low-intensity conflicts for control of regions like Northern Ireland and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and 8 potential conflicts repressed by supervigilant states.

USArms helps the world’s leaders control civil conflicts. Small arms and sophisticated riot-control vehicles are less expensive than major conventional systems and therefore easier for poor nations to buy. And under the Arms Export Control Act, we can sell weapons valued under $14 million without government interference.

For us, the benefits are obvious: These products fill a small but important market niche that supplements our high-dollar trade in larger systems. We estimate that USArms exports of products designed to control low-intensity conflicts will escalate from $1 billion in 1991 to $1.5 billion by the end of 1996.

TARGET: THE DYNAMIC GLOBAL ARMS MARKET

Overall, USArms has seen our domestic arms sales tumble in recent years. With demand for weapons from America’s traditional allies also dropping, USArms has developed creative entry points into the global arms market.

We are marketing intensively in regions experiencing conflict and in countries torn by ethnic uprisings. In particular, we have taken an aggressive approach to those countries that spend more on military budgets than on social programs, on the grounds that political pressures should not interfere with our fiduciary obligation to sell products. Despite a 48 percent drop in global arms deliveries to the third world between 1988 and 1993, our Third World deliveries rose 7 percent due to our successful marketing efforts. Some examples:

TURKEY

Respectively the number one and two buyers of major weapons systems in the world (not just from USArms), Greece and Turkey are locked in a frantic arms race. In 1993, the two countries combined to purchase 1,603 tanks from USArms–up from a previously unprecedented high of 1,180 the year before. USArms sends sophisticated technology to both countries, each of which now licenses technology for Stinger air-defense missiles. We anticipate that such sales will increase pressure to develop more sophisticated weapons for U.S. security, in case our allies should ever turn against us.

Turkey, situated between the Balkans and the Middle East, is a vital security partner for the United States. In 1993, USArms sold 22 attack helicopters to Turkey–almost four times as many as in 1992. Moreover, Turkey is reportedly using USArms planes to intensify its battle against the Kurds and is engaged in a tense arms race with its historic rival, Greece, which is also a booming arms market.

THE MIDDLE EAST

In 1990, 6 of the 15 countries in the Middle East spent at least two-and-a-half times more on their militaries than on health and education combined. This region is clearly a booming market. In the two-and-a-half years after the Gulf War, we racked up an impressive $43.8 billion in sales to the Middle East. We recognize that U.S. intervention in the region might mean combat against a sophisticated military that we ourselves have armed. But, as in the Gulf War, America would ultimately prevail.

In the Middle East, USArms has maintained massive sales to Saudi Arabia despite analysts’ prediction that the government might be forced to address rampant social inequalities with programs that would cut into military spending. Last year’s $12.5 billion in sales to Saudi Arabia accounted for 38 percent of our total foreign military sales. Critics say our sales to Saudi Arabia may stimulate regional insecurities and encourage a fundamentalist uprising; however, we are committed to serving our loyal customer, the Saudi government.

EAST ASIA

East Asian nations are long overdue the sort of military modernization the United States takes for granted. USArms has illustrated its commitment to the region with investments such as the $575,000 we spent on Singapore’s 1994 air show. Our sale of eight F-18s to Malaysia demonstrates our constant attention to the bottom line: In the new world order, no sale is too small to pursue.

East Asia has been concerned about China’s skyrocketing military budget and expansionist rumblings since the end of the Cold War. The result is that East Asia now represents the fastest-growing and wealthiest arms market in the world. Between 1987 and 1991, East Asia made arms purchases totaling $29 billion, about 13 percent of all USArms products delivered during that period.

USARMS: WINNING THROUGH TEAMWORK

USArms prides itself on our crack team: approximately 35,000 subsidiary defense contractors employing 2.7 million workers, 15,000 Pentagon salespeople, and you, our 115.8 million taxpaying American shareholders.

And now that times are tough, the USArms team is on the offensive. For example, when domestic demand dropped to zero for the F-15 fighter, our marketing arm at the Pentagon focused on foreign markets. Over the last two years, we have agreed to sell up to 97 F-15s (deals worth $11.6 billion) to Israel and Saudi Arabia. Those sales, in turn, keep assembly lines open at 2,070 USArms defense contractors. The Saudi sale alone saved 40,000 jobs, ensuring that a broad section of our nation’s workforce remains in the defense industry.

How do we arrange such deals? First, our employees at the Defense, Commerce, and State departments target certain countries for direct military aid. We disperse money to these countries, which then use them to purchase USArms products. In 1993, we gave just over $3.4 billion in direct aid, much of which financed Israel’s F-15 deal.

And we further subsidize targeted countries: Of the money USArms directs to the World Bank, the International Military Education and Training program, and the Economic Support Fund, much returns to our coffers in the form of increased weapons sales–$2.44 billion in the last year alone.

Our most innovative technique for opening markets involves a kind of trade called “offsets.” If a country buys our weapons, we might give them the technology to produce those arms on their own shores. Or, we might contract to buy other manufactured goods from that country. In the Israeli deal, for instance, offsets infused the Israeli economy with an estimated 70 percent of the cost of the F-15s.

That’s where you, our shareholders, come in. Opening new markets (and maintaining old ones) takes money. Although you spend more than $1 for every $1 foreign governments pay for our products, your investment is being put to good use.

YOUR SHAREHOLDER DOLLARS AT WORK

In 1993, total USArms sales to foreign clients amounted to $32.4 billion. Of course, this wasn’t just money supplied by foreign customers. You helped. The table below roughly breaks down how USArms depends on shareholders to underwrite sales.

Net dollars spent by our foreign clients: $11.6 billion (36%)

After deducting shareholder expenses and offsets, this figure represents the net dollars spent by our foreign clients. Most go directly to our subsidiary defense contractors, but we want to assure you that our shareholders are not forgotten. Of our foreign military sales for 1993, about 4 percent ($1.3 billion) was returned to shareholders indirectly–via the Pentagon’s budget.

Direct shareholder expenses: $7.8 billion (24%)

Direct shareholder expenses may seem high, but your investment is being put to good use–expanding the world market. Here’s where most of your tax dollars went: Direct military aid ($3.4 billion) Economic Support Fund, indirectly funneled back into arms ($2.7 billion) The 10 percent of our World Bank contributions that are funneled back into arms ($200 million) Bad loans from the U.S. government to foreign countries, derived from a 10-year average ($1 billion) International sales and support staff at the Pentagon and the State and Commerce departments ($500 million) International Military Education and Training program ($43 million) Air and trade shows ($25 million).

Combined shareholder/ subsidiary expenses due to “offsets”: $13 billion (40%)

In offsets, both defense contractors and the U.S. government work to divert U.S. dollars toward foreign clients. In recent years, approximately two-thirds of foreign military sales involved offsets, which undercut those revenues by about 60 percent. Sometimes we arrange for arms production to take place overseas, which unfortunately cuts down on the number of jobs we’re able to provide our American workers. In other offsets, USArms subsidiary defense contractors buy some completely unrelated product from a foreign client to boost that country’s economy.

The F-15 success story

This popular jet fighter brought in more cash with less shareholder subsidy than most of our products. And your research dollars for the new F-22 jet ensure American air superiority should any of our F-15 customers turn hostile. By coordinating the efforts of 2,070 companies with related government agencies, your shareholder dollars helped USArms generate profits.

PRATT & WHITNEY

1993 profits: $156 million
The largest subcontract in the Saudi deal included 22 engines that enable speeds of up to 1,650 mph.

RAYTHEON

1993 profits: $693 million
The Saudi sale included Sidewinder heat-seekers, Hughes Maverick air-to-surface missiles, and jointly made Sparrow radar-guided missiles.

MARTIN MARIETTA

1993 Profits: $450 million
Vulcan Guns fire 120 shots per second out of seven barrels.

MCDONNELL DOUGLAS

1993 profits: $396 million
McDonnell Douglas distributes business to other subsidiaries and assembles the finished product.

GM HUGHES ELECTRONICS

1993 profits: $922 million
Radar tracks small high-speed targets at treetop level.

USArms

The Pentagon

Washington, D.C. 20310

Dear Shareholders:

USArms sales policies under Clinton have been subject to public criticism in recent months by some prominent shareholders from both ends of the political spectrum. In the interest of dispelling their concerns, we are providing a brief summary of their comments with our response.

On the one hand are liberal critics like Natalie Goldring, deputy director of the British American Security Information Council, Bill Hartung, senior research fellow at the World Policy Institute and author of “And Weapons For All,” and Randall Forsberg, executive director of the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies. All three are disappointed that Clinton is following the course set by CEOs Reagan and Bush.

Dr. Goldring says USArms should not sell arms to countries that historically have been enemies with each other, such as Israel and Saudi Arabia. She is also concerned about our sales in East Asia because alliances there are shifting so fast that our own weapons may be used against us. “In the past, the Cold War lines were so strongly drawn that bought countries generally stayed bought. That’s not true now,” she says.

Mr. Hartung says USArms has a responsibility to keep countries from “increasing their destructive potential” and therefore shouldn’t sell small arms, system upgrades, or technology that aids nuclear capability in regions of possible conflict. Ms. Forsberg agrees that USArms’ dependence on exports to sustain domestic production creates a “self-fulfilling threat.” She adds that unless we work with Russia to limit arms sales, the world arms race will spin out of control.

On the other hand, Joel Johnson, vice president international of the Association of Aerospace Industries, criticizes management for failing to provide USArms subsidiaries with the same sort of loan guarantees given to other major exporters, such as agriculture. Mr. Johnson also says the Pentagon’s fee on foreign military purchases cuts into sales by raising prices and making our aerospace industries less competitive in the weapons market. He concedes that it might be better if we didn’t sell weapons to antagonistic countries, but argues that we need to look at whether we are denying dangerous regimes access to weapons or simply limiting the USArms market.

We agree with Mr. Johnson that we need to evaluate our options–and the effect on our bottom line–before we refuse to sell weapons to aggressive countries. We disagree, however, on loan guarantees and surcharges; USArms needs to recover some of the expenses incurred in negotiating sales for our subsidiaries. As for being priced out of the international market, we believe that our buyers are getting a great deal–USArms might charge more, but we also guarantee that we will purchase products from their countries, which offsets some of their costs.

As for the objections raised by Dr. Goldring, Mr. Hartung, and Ms. Forsberg, USArms management has often heard the argument that, as the sole remaining superpower in the post-Cold War world, we have a responsibility to limit arms sales. We believe that view is unrealistic and is disrespectful of developing countries’ sovereign right to arm themselves. Frankly, we do not live in a moral world, and if USArms did not fill the global arms demand, others would.

Indeed, we are confident that by selling arms across the globe, we are not creating future threats but future customers. These critics talk about moral imperatives: USArms believes our only moral imperative is to protect the jobs and security of the American people and to sustain the industrial base that has made us the most powerful nation in the world.

Sincerely,

Ronald H. Brown

Secretary of Commerce

USArms Vice President of Marketing
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Re: Mrs. Kay Griggs on How the Government Works

Postby admin » Fri Jan 05, 2018 5:54 am

Chesty Puller
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 1/4/18

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


Image
Lewis Burwell "Chesty" Puller
Puller in 1950
Born June 26, 1898
West Point, Virginia, U.S.
Died October 11, 1971 (aged 73)
Hampton, Virginia, U.S.
Buried Christchurch Parish Cemetery
Christ Church, Saluda, Virginia, U.S.
Allegiance United States of America
Service/branch United States Marine Corps
Years of service 1918–1955
Rank Lieutenant General
Unit 1st Marine Division
Commands held World War II: 1st Battalion, 7th Marines and 1st Marines
Korean War: 1st Marines
Battles/wars
Banana Wars

Occupation of Haiti
Occupation of Nicaragua
Battle of Agua Carta
Battle of El Sauce
World War II
Action along the Matanikau
Battle for Henderson Field
Battle of Cape Gloucester
Battle of Peleliu
Korean War
Battle of Inchon
Battle of Chosin Reservoir
Awards
Navy Cross (5)
Distinguished Service Cross
Silver Star
Legion of Merit (2),
"V" Device
Bronze Star,
"V" Device
Purple Heart
Air Medal (3)
Spouse(s) Virginia Montague Evans
Relations Lewis Burwell Puller, Jr. (son)

Lewis Burwell "Chesty" Puller (June 26, 1898 – October 11, 1971) was a United States Marine Corps lieutenant general who fought guerrillas in Haiti and Nicaragua, in World War II and the Korean War.

Puller is the most decorated Marine in American history. He is one of two U.S. servicemen awarded five Navy Crosses and one Army Distinguished Service Cross. Puller's six Crosses are next in number to the eight times Eddie Rickenbacker received the nation's second-highest military award for valor.[1]

In 1955 (after 37 years of service), Puller retired from the Marine Corps. He lived in Virginia and died in 1971, at age 73.

Early life

Puller was born in West Point, Virginia, to Matthew and Martha Puller. His father was a grocer who died when Lewis was 10 years old. Puller grew up listening to old veterans' tales of the American Civil War and idolizing Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. He wanted to enlist in the United States Army to fight in the Border War with Mexico in 1916, but he was too young and could not get parental consent from his mother.[2]

The following year, Puller attended the Virginia Military Institute but left in August 1918 as World War I was still ongoing, saying that he wanted to "go where the guns are!"[3] Inspired by the 5th Marines at Belleau Wood, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps as a private and attended boot camp at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina.[2]

Although he never saw action in that war, the Marine Corps was expanding, and soon after graduating he attended their non-commissioned officer school and Officer Candidates School (OCS) at Quantico, Virginia, following that. Graduating from OCS on June 16, 1919, Puller was appointed a second lieutenant in the reserves, but the reduction in force from 73,000 to 1,100 officers and 27,400 men[4] following the war led to his being put on inactive status 10 days later and given the rank of corporal.[2]

Interwar years[edit]

Image
First Lieutenant Lewis "Chesty" Puller (center left) and Sergeant William "Ironman" Lee (center right) and two Nicaraguan soldiers in 1931

Corporal Puller received orders to serve in the Gendarmerie d'Haiti as a lieutenant, seeing action in Haiti.[5] While the United States was working under a treaty with Haiti, he participated in over forty engagements during the ensuing five years against the Caco rebels and attempted to regain his commission as an officer twice. In 1922, he served as an adjutant to Major Alexander Vandegrift, a future Commandant of the Marine Corps.

Puller returned stateside and was finally recommissioned as a second lieutenant on March 6, 1924 (Service No. 03158), afterward completing assignments at the Marine Barracks in Norfolk, Virginia, The Basic School in Quantico, Virginia, and with the 10th Marine Artillery Regiment in Quantico, Virginia. He was assigned to the Marine Barracks at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in July 1926 and in San Diego, California, in 1928.

Image
Puller with members of the Guardia Nacional

In December 1928, Puller was assigned to the Nicaraguan National Guard detachment, where he was awarded his first Navy Cross for his actions from February 16 to August 19, 1930, when he led "five successive engagements against superior numbers of armed bandit forces." He returned stateside in July 1931 and completed the year-long Company Officers Course at Fort Benning, Georgia, thereafter returning to Nicaragua from September 20 to October 1, 1932, and was awarded a second Navy Cross. Puller led American Marines and Nicaraguan National Guardsmen into battle against Sandinista rebels in the last major engagement of the Sandino Rebellion near El Sauce on December 26, 1932.

After his service in Nicaragua, Puller was assigned to the Marine detachment at the American Legation in Beijing, China, commanding a unit of China Marines. He then went on to serve aboard USS Augusta, a cruiser in the Asiatic Fleet, which was commanded by then-Captain Chester W. Nimitz. Puller returned to the States in June 1936 as an instructor at The Basic School in Philadelphia, where he trained Ben Robertshaw, Pappy Boyington, and Lew Walt.[6]

In May 1939, he returned to the Augusta as commander of the on-board Marine detachment, and then back to China, disembarking in Shanghai in May 1940 to serve as the executive officer and commanding officer of 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines (2/4) until August 1941. Major Puller returned to the U.S. on August 28, 1941. After a short leave, he was given command of 1st Battalion, 7th Marines (1/7) of the 1st Marine Division, stationed at New River, North Carolina (later Camp Lejeune).[7]

World War II

Image
Lt. Col. Puller on Guadalcanal in September, 1942

Early in the Pacific theater, the 7th Marines formed the nucleus of the newly created 3rd Marine Brigade and arrived to defend Samoa on May 8, 1942. Later they were redeployed from the brigade and on September 4, 1942, they left Samoa and rejoined the 1st Division at Guadalcanal on September 18, 1942.

Soon after arriving on Guadalcanal, Lt. Col. Puller led his battalion in a fierce action along the Matanikau, in which Puller's quick thinking saved three of his companies from annihilation. In the action, these companies were surrounded and cut off by a larger Japanese force. Puller ran to the shore, signaled a United States Navy destroyer, the USS Ballard,[8] and then Puller directed the destroyer to provide fire support while landing craft rescued his Marines from their precarious position. U.S. Coast Guard Signalman First Class Douglas Albert Munro—Officer-in-Charge of the group of landing craft, was killed while providing covering fire from his landing craft for the Marines as they evacuated the beach and was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for the action, to date the only Coast Guardsman to receive the decoration. Puller, for his actions, was awarded the Bronze Star Medal with Combat "V".

Later on Guadalcanal, Puller was awarded his third Navy Cross, in what was later known as the "Battle for Henderson Field". Puller commanded 1st Battalion 7th Marines (1/7), one of two American infantry units defending the airfield against a regiment-strength Japanese force. The 3rd Battalion of the U.S. Army's 164th Infantry Regiment (3/164) fought alongside the Marines. In a firefight on the night of October 24–25, 1942, lasting about three hours, 1/7 and 3/164 sustained 70 casualties; the Japanese force suffered over 1,400 killed in action, and the Americans held the airfield. He nominated two of his men (one being Sgt. John Basilone) for Medals of Honor. He was wounded himself on November 9.

Puller was then made executive officer of the 7th Marine Regiment. While serving in this capacity at Cape Gloucester, Puller was awarded his fourth Navy Cross for overall performance of duty between December 26, 1943, and January 19, 1944. During this time, when the battalion commanders of 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines (3/7) and later, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines (3/5), were under heavy machine gun and mortar fire, he expertly reorganized the battalion and led the successful attack against heavily fortified Japanese defensive positions. He was promoted to colonel effective February 1, 1944, and by the end of the month had been named commander of the 1st Marine Regiment. In September and October 1944, Puller led the 1st Marine Regiment into the protracted battle on Peleliu, one of the bloodiest battles in Marine Corps history, and received his first of two Legion of Merit awards. The 1st Marines under Puller's command lost 1,749 out of approximately 3,000 men, but these losses did not stop Puller from ordering frontal assaults against the well-entrenched enemy. The corps commander had to order the 1st Marine Division commanding general to pull the annihilated 1st Marine Regiment out of the line.[9]

During the summer of 1944, Puller's younger brother, Samuel D. Puller, the Executive Officer of the 4th Marine Regiment, was killed by an enemy sniper on Guam.[10]

Puller returned to the United States in November 1944, was named executive officer of the Infantry Training Regiment at Camp Lejeune and, two weeks later, Commanding Officer. After the war, he was made Director of the 8th Reserve District at New Orleans, and later commanded the Marine Barracks at Pearl Harbor.

Korean War

Image
Colonel Puller cutting the Marine Corps birthday cake on 10 November 1950.

Image
Colonel Puller studies the terrain during the Korean War.

Image
Then-retired Puller and his wife, Virginia, at their home.

At the outbreak of the Korean War, Puller was once again assigned as commander of the First Marine Regiment. He participated in the landing at Inchon on September 15, 1950, and was awarded the Silver Star Medal.[11] For leadership from September 15 through November 2, he was awarded his second Legion of Merit. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross from the U.S. Army for heroism in action from November 29 to December 4, and his fifth Navy Cross for heroism during December 5–10, 1950, at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir. It was during that battle that he said the famous line, "We've been looking for the enemy for some time now. We've finally found him. We're surrounded. That simplifies things."[12]

In January 1951, Puller was promoted to brigadier general and was assigned duty as assistant division commander (ADC) of the 1st Marine Division. On February 24, however, his immediate superior, Major General O.P. Smith, was hastily transferred to command IX Corps when its Army commander, Major General Bryant Moore, died. Smith's transfer left Puller temporarily in command of the 1st Marine Division until sometime in March. He completed his tour of duty as assistant commander and left for the United States on May 20, 1951.[13] He took command of the 3rd Marine Division at Camp Pendleton, California until January 1952, and then was assistant commander of the division until June 1952. He then took over Troop Training Unit Pacific at Coronado, California. In September 1953, he was promoted to major general.

Post-Korean War

In July 1954, Puller took command of the 2nd Marine Division at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina until February 1955 when he became Deputy Camp Commander. He suffered a stroke,[14] and was retired by the Marine Corps on November 1, 1955 with a tombstone promotion to lieutenant general.[15]

Regarding his nickname, in a handwritten addition to a typed 22 November 1954 letter to Maj. Frank C. Sheppard, Puller wrote, "I agree with you 100%. I had done a little soldiering previous to Guadalcanal and had been called a lot of names, but why ‘Chesty’? Especially the steel part??"[16]

Relations

Puller's son, Lewis Burwell Puller, Jr. (generally known as Lewis Puller), served as a Marine lieutenant in the Vietnam War. While serving with 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines (2/1), Lewis Jr. was severely wounded by a mine explosion, losing both legs and parts of his hands. Lieutenant General Puller broke down sobbing at seeing his son for the first time in the hospital.[17] Lewis Jr. won a 1992 Pulitzer Prize for his autobiography Fortunate Son: The Healing of a Vietnam Vet.

Puller was father-in-law to Colonel William H. Dabney, USMC (Retired), a Virginia Military Institute (VMI) graduate, who was the commanding officer (then Captain) of two heavily reinforced rifle companies of the Third Battalion, Twenty-Sixth Marines (3/26) from January 21 to April 14, 1968 in Vietnam. During the entire period, Colonel Dabney's force stubbornly defended Hill 881S, a regional outpost vital to the defense of the Khe Sanh Combat Base during the 77-day siege. Following Khe Sanh, Dabney was recommended for the Navy Cross for his actions on Hill 881 South, but his battalion executive officer's helicopter carrying the recommendation papers crashed—and the papers were lost. It was not until April 15, 2005, that Colonel Dabney received the Navy Cross during an award ceremony at Virginia Military Institute.

Puller was a distant cousin to the famous U.S. Army General George S. Patton.[18]

He was an Episcopalian and parishioner of Christ Church Parish and is buried in the historic cemetery next to his wife Virginia Montague Evans.[19]

Decorations and awards

Puller received the second-highest U.S. military award six times (one of only two persons so honored): five Navy Crosses and one U.S. Army Distinguished Service Cross. He was the second of two U.S. servicemen to ever receive five Navy Crosses, U.S. Navy submarine commander Roy Milton Davenport was the first to receive five Navy Crosses.

Puller's military awards include:

1st row Navy Cross
with four stars Distinguished
Service Cross Silver Star
2nd row Legion of Merit with Combat "V"
and one star Bronze Star
with Combat "V" Air Medal with
two stars Purple Heart
3rd row Presidential Unit Citation
with 4 stars Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal
with 1 star Marine Corps Expeditionary Medal
with 1 star World War I Victory Medal
with West Indies clasp
4th row Haitian Campaign
Medal Second Nicaraguan
Campaign Medal China
Service Medal American Defense Service
Medal with Base clasp
5th row American
Campaign Medal Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal
with 4 stars World War II
Victory Medal National Defense
Service Medal
6th row Korean Service Medal
with 5 stars Haitian
Médaille militaire Nicaraguan Presidential
Medal of Merit with Diploma Nicaraguan Cross of Valor
with Diploma
7th row Korean Order of Military Merit,
Eulji Cordon Medal Order of the Cloud and
Banner with Special Cravat[20] Republic of Korea
Presidential Unit Citation United Nations Service
Medal for Korea

First Navy Cross citation

Citation:


"For distinguished service in the line of his profession while commanding a Nicaraguan National Guard patrol. First Lieutenant Lewis B. Puller, United States Marine Corps, successfully led his forces into five successful engagements against superior numbers of armed bandit forces; namely, at LaVirgen on 16 February 1930, at Los Cedros on 6 June 1930, at Moncotal on 22 July 1930, at Guapinol on 25 July 1930, and at Malacate on 19 August 1930, with the result that the bandits were in each engagement completely routed with losses of nine killed and many wounded. By his intelligent and forceful leadership without thought of his own personal safety, by great physical exertion and by suffering many hardships, Lieutenant Puller surmounted all obstacles and dealt five successive and severe blows against organized banditry in the Republic of Nicaragua."[21]

Second Navy Cross citation

Citation:


"First Lieutenant Lewis B. Puller, United States Marine Corps (Captain, Guardia Nacional de Nicaragua) performed exceptionally meritorious service in a duty of great responsibility while in command of a Guardia Patrol from 20 September to 1 October 1932. Lieutenant Puller and his command of forty Guardia and Gunnery Sergeant William A. Lee, United States Marine Corps, serving as a First Lieutenant in the Guardia, penetrated the isolated mountainous bandit territory for a distance of from eighty to one hundred miles north of Jinotega, his nearest base. This patrol was ambushed on 26 September 1932, at a point northeast of Mount Kilambe by an insurgent force of one hundred fifty in a well-prepared position armed with not less than seven automatic weapons and various classes of small arms and well-supplied with ammunition. Early in the combat, Gunnery Sergeant Lee, the Second in Command, was seriously wounded and reported as dead. The Guardia immediately behind Lieutenant Puller in the point was killed by the first burst of fire, Lieutenant Puller, with great courage, coolness and display of military judgment, so directed the fire and movement of his men that the enemy were driven first from the high ground on the right of his position, and then by a flanking movement forced from the high ground to the left and finally were scattered in confusion with a loss of ten killed and many wounded by the persistent and well-directed attack of the patrol. The numerous casualties suffered by the enemy and the Guardia losses of two killed and four wounded are indicative of the severity of the enemy resistance. This signal victory in jungle country, with no lines of communication and a hundred miles from any supporting force, was largely due to the indomitable courage and persistence of the patrol commander. Returning with the wounded to Jinotega, the patrol was ambushed twice by superior forces on 30 September. On both of the occasions the enemy was dispersed with severe losses."[21]

Third Navy Cross citation

Citation:


"For extraordinary heroism as Commanding Officer of the First Battalion, Seventh Marines, First Marine Division, during the action against enemy Japanese forces on Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, on the night of 24 to 25 October 1942. While Lieutenant Colonel Puller's battalion was holding a mile-long front in a heavy downpour of rain, a Japanese force, superior in number, launched a vigorous assault against that position of the line which passed through a dense jungle. Courageously withstanding the enemy's desperate and determined attacks, Lieutenant Colonel Puller not only held his battalion to its position until reinforcements arrived three hours later, but also effectively commanded the augmented force until late in the afternoon of the next day. By his tireless devotion to duty and cool judgment under fire, he prevented a hostile penetration of our lines and was largely responsible for the successful defense of the sector assigned to his troops."[21]

Fourth Navy Cross citation

Citation:


"For extraordinary heroism as Executive Officer of the Seventh Marines, First Marine Division, serving with the Sixth United States Army, in combat against enemy Japanese forces at Cape Gloucester, New Britain, from 26 December 1943 to 19 January 1944. Assigned temporary command of the Third Battalion, Seventh Marines, from 4 to 9 January, Lieutenant Colonel Puller quickly reorganized and advanced his unit, effecting the seizure of the objective without delay. Assuming additional duty in command of the Third Battalion, Fifth Marines, from 7 to 8 January, after the commanding officer and executive officer had been wounded, Lieutenant Colonel Puller unhesitatingly exposed himself to rifle, machine-gun and mortar fire from strongly entrenched Japanese positions to move from company to company in his front lines, reorganizing and maintaining a critical position along a fire-swept ridge. His forceful leadership and gallant fighting spirit under the most hazardous conditions were contributing factors in the defeat of the enemy during this campaign and in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service."[21]

Fifth Navy Cross citation

Citation:


"For extraordinary heroism as Commanding Officer of the First Marines, First Marine Division (Reinforced), in action against aggressor forces in the vicinity of Koto-ri, Korea, from 5 to 10 December 1950. Fighting continuously in sub-zero weather against a vastly outnumbering hostile force, Colonel Puller drove off repeated and fanatical enemy attacks upon his Regimental defense sector and supply points. Although the area was frequently covered by grazing machine-gun fire and intense artillery and mortar fire, he coolly moved along his troops to insure their correct tactical employment, reinforced the lines as the situation demanded, and successfully defended the perimeter, keeping open the main supply routes for the movement of the Division. During the attack from Koto-ri to Hungnam, he expertly utilized his Regiment as the Division rear guard, repelling two fierce enemy assaults which severely threatened the security of the unit, and personally supervised the care and prompt evacuation of all casualties. By his unflagging determination, he served to inspire his men to heroic efforts in defense of their positions and assured the safety of much valuable equipment which would otherwise have been lost to the enemy. His skilled leadership, superb courage and valiant devotion to duty in the face of overwhelming odds reflect the highest credit upon Colonel Puller and the United States Naval Service."[21]

Distinguished Service Cross citation

Citation:


"The President of the United States of America, under the provisions of the Act of Congress approved July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to Colonel Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller (MCSN: 0-3158), United States Marine Corps, for extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations against an armed enemy of the United Nations while serving as Commanding Officer, First Marines, FIRST Marine Division (Reinforced), in action against enemy aggressor forces in the vicinity of the Chosin Reservoir, Korea, during the period 29 November to 4 December 1950. Colonel Puller's actions contributed materially to the breakthrough of the First Marine Regiment in the Chosin Reservoir area and are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service."[21]

Namesakes and honors

In addition to his military awards Puller has received numerous honors due to his Marine Corps service:

• On October 26, 2017 a groundbreaking ceremony was held for the Puller Veterans Care Center located in Vint Hill, Virginia. “The new Puller Veterans Care Center will be built on the former Vint Hill Farms Station in Fauquier County, which previously served as a United States Army and National Security Agency Facility. The new care center will deliver top-quality care to Virginia Veterans in a home-like setting. The 128-bed facility will feature all private rooms that will be organized into households and neighborhoods that surround a central community center.” dvs.virginia.gov
• The frigate Lewis B. Puller (FFG-23) was named after him.
• The headquarters building for 2nd Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team on Yorktown Naval Weapons Station in Yorktown, Virginia, is named Puller Hall in his honor.
• Route 33 in Middlesex County, Virginia, is named General Puller Highway. It is the county in which Puller is buried.
• On November 10, 2005, the United States Postal Service issued its Distinguished Marines stamps in which Puller was honored.[22]
• The Marine Corps' mascot is perpetually named "Chesty Pullerton." (e.g. Chesty XIII). He is always a purebred English Bulldog.
• In 2012, Military Sealift Command announced that a Mobile Landing Platform will be named after Puller, USNS Lewis B. Puller (T-MLP-3/T-AFSB-1).[23]

Puller in U.S. Marine Corps culture

Image
A memorial flagpole erected in Puller's honor in his hometown of West Point

Puller remains a well-known figure in U.S. Marine Corps folklore, with both true and exaggerated tales of his experiences being constantly recounted among U.S. Marines.

A common incantation in U.S. Marine Corps boot camp is to end one's day with the declaration, "Good night, Chesty, wherever you are!"[24] Another common encouragement is "Chesty Puller never quit!"

In U.S. Marine Corps recruit training and OCS cadences, Marines chant "It was good for Chesty Puller/And it's good enough for me" as well as "Tell Chesty Puller I did my best."—Chesty is symbolic of the esprit de corps of the Marines. Also, the recruits sing "Chesty Puller was a good Marine and a good Marine was he."

U.S. Marines, while doing push-ups, will tell each other to "do one for Chesty!"

Puller insisted upon good equipment and discipline; once he came upon a second lieutenant who had ordered an enlisted man to salute him 100 times for missing a salute. Puller told the lieutenant, "You were absolutely correct in making him salute you 100 times, Lieutenant, but you know that an officer must return every salute he receives. Now return them all, and I will keep count."[25][26][27]

While on duty in Hawaii and inspecting the armory, Puller fined himself $100 for accidentally discharging a .45 caliber pistol indoors, although the charge for his men was only $20.[27]

References

1. "Valor awards for Edward Vernon Rickenbacker". valor.militarytimes.com. Retrieved 29 July 2017.
2. Wise, James E.; Scott Baron (2007). Navy Cross: extraordinary heroism in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other conflicts. Naval Institute Press. p. 256. ISBN 978-1-59114-945-3.
3. Wilson, Diann W. (2008). Dogged Determination: Life Experiences and the USMC Bulldog Copyright. iUniverse. p. 98. ISBN 978-0-59545-358-0.
4. Hoffman 2001, p. 21
5. Davis 1991
6. Template:Country data 1991
7. "The History of the 7th Marines". 7th Marines. Archived from the original on 2007-07-01. Retrieved June 30, 2006.
8. Davis,Burke,2016,"Marine The Life of Chesty Puller", ASIN: B01BM1TJ48
9. Giaffo, Lou (2013). Gooch's Marines. Dorrance Publishing Company, Incorporated. p. 132. ISBN 9781434933997.
10. Keene, R. R. (2004). "Wake up and die, Marine!" (Reprinted by www.military.com). Leatherneck Magazine.
11. SecNavInst 1650.1H, 8/22/2006, Silver Star Medal.
12. Russ (1998). Breakout. p. 230.
13. Hoffman 2001, p. 604
14. Hoffman 2001, p. 660
15. Hoffman 2001, p. 688
16. "The Marine's Marine, Chesty Puller, Wonders How He Got His Nickname, and Mentions His Famous Service at Guadalcanal". The Raab Collection, LLC. Archived from the original on 28 April 2016. Retrieved 18 April 2016.
17. Puller, Lewis B. Jr. (1991). Fortunate Son: The Healing of a Vietnam Vet. New York: Grove Weidenfeld. p. 162. ISBN 0-8021-1218-8.
18. Hoffman 2001, p. 656
19. "Lientenant General Lewis B. Chesty Puller". www.christchurchmiddlesex.com. Retrieved 2016-09-22.
20. "Private Law 85-704" (PDF). United States Statutes at Large, Volume 72, 85th Congress, 2nd Session. Retrieved 22 January 2015.
21. "Military Times". Retrieved 29 July 2017.
22. "Four Distinguished Marines Saluted on U.S. Postage Stamps" (Press release). United States Postal Service. November 10, 2005. Retrieved 2015-01-22.
23. James Marconi (5 January 2012). "Navy Names First Three Mobile Landing Platform Ships". Military Sealift Command Public Affairs. United States Navy. Archived from the original on 21 February 2013. Retrieved 19 February 2013.
24. Davis 1991, p. 6
25. Davis 1991, pp. 100–101
26. Cossey, B. Keith (January 2006). "The Virtue of Unabashed Awkwardness in Military Leadership and Everyday Life". COMBAT Magazine. 4 (1). ISSN 1542-1546. Retrieved 2006-11-26.
27. Marine Corps Social Media. "Ultimate Marine (Puller Vs Butler)". Marines Blog Official Blog of the United States Marine Corps. United States Marine Corps. Archived from the original on 31 July 2013. Retrieved 12 May 2014.

Bibliography

• Boot, Max (2002). The Savage Wars of Peace – Small Wars and the Rise of American Power. Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-00721-X. LCCN 2004695066.
• Crocker, H.W. (2006). Don't Tread on me: A 400-year history of America at War, from Indian Fighting to Terrorist Hunting. Crown Forum. ISBN 1-4000-5363-3.
• Davis, Burke (1991) [1962]. Marine! The Life of Chesty Puller. Bantam Books. ISBN 0-553-27182-2.
• Fehrenbach, T.R. (1963). This Kind of War. Dulles, Virginia: Brassey's. ISBN 1-57488-259-7.
• Hoffman, Jon T. (2001). Chesty: The Story of Lieutenant General Lewis B. Puller, USMC. Random House. ISBN 0-679-44732-6.
• Russ, Martin (1999). Breakout – The Chosin Reservoir Campaign, Korea, 1950. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-029259-4.
• Simmons, Edwin H. (2003). The United States Marines: A History, Fourth Edition. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-59114-790-5.
• "Lieutenant General Lewis "Chesty" B. Puller, USMC". Who's Who in Marine Corps History. History Division, United States Marine Corps. Retrieved 2008-11-27.
• "Lieutenant General Lewis "Chesty" Puller – Deceased". General Officer biographies. United States Marine Corps. Archived from the original on 2012-01-18. Retrieved 2009-02-10.
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