by J. W Lateer
Dillon was born in Geneva, Switzerland, the son of American parents, Anne McEldin (Douglass) and financier Clarence Dillon. Although Dillon grew up as a patrician, his paternal grandfather, Samuel Lapowski, was a poor Jewish immigrant from Poland. After leaving Poland, his grandfather settled in Texas after the American Civil War and married Dillon’s Swedish-American grandmother. Dillon’s father later changed his family name to Dillon, his grandmother’s maiden name. Dillon’s mother was descended from Grahams Lairds of Tamrawer Castle at Kilsyth, Stirling, Scotland.
Dillon began his education at Pine Lodge School in Lakehurst, Ocean County, New Jersey which he attended at the same time as the three Rockefeller brothers Nelson, Laurance, and John. He continued at the Groton School in Massachusetts, then at Harvard University, A.B. magna cum laude 1931 in American history and literature.
In 1938 be became Vice-President and Director of Dillon, Read & Co., a firm that bore his father’s name. After his World War II service on Guam, Saipan, and in the Philippines, he left the United States Navy as Lieutenant Commander decorated with the Legion of Merit and Air Medal. In 1946 he became chairman of Dillon, Read; by 1952 he had doubled the firm’s investments.
Dillon had been active in Republican politics since 1934. He worked for John Foster Dulles in Thomas E. Dewey’s 1948 presidential campaign. In 1951 he organized the New Jersey effort to secure the 1952 Republican nomination for Dwight D. Eisenhower. He was also a major contributor to Eisenhower’s general election campaign in 1952.
President Eisenhower appointed him United States Ambassador to France in 1953. Following that appointment he became Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs in 1958 before becoming Under Secretary of State For Polical Affairs the following year.
In 1961, John F. Kennedy, a Democrat, appointed the Republican Dillon to be Treasury Secretary, despite Dillon’s support for Nixon in 1960.
Although it was said by some that JFK chose Dillon because he wanted a “sound money” man at Treasury, Dillon was obviously not the only sound money man who could have been chosen.
JFK first met Dillon in 1956 at Harvard, when Dillon was grand marshall of a Harvard event and JFK was receiving an honorary degree at the same event. After the ceremony, the two went to a club called the “Spee Club” where both were members and then, following that, they were sometimes golfing companions. Per authors Perez and Willett, Dillon was the wealthiest Secretary of the Treasury since Andrew Mellon in 1928. Dillon remained Treasury Secretary under President Lyndon B. Johnson until 1965.
Dillon proposed the fifth round of tariff negotiations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), conducted in Geneva 1960-1962; it came to be called the “Dillon Round” and led to substantial tariff reduction. Dillon was important in securing presidential power for reciprocal tariff reductions under the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. He also played a role in crafting the Revenue Act of 1962, which established a 7 percent investment credit to spur industrial growth. He supervised revision of depreciation rules to benefit corporate investment. A close friend of John D. Rockefeller III, he was chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation from 1972 to 1975. He also served alongside John Rockefeller on the 1973 Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs, and under Nelson Rockefeller in the Rockefeller Commission to investigate CIA activities (along with Ronald Reagan). He had been president of Harvard Board of Overseers, chairman of the Brookings Institute, and vice chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations.
With his first wife, Dillon collected impressionist art. He was a longtime trustee of the Metropolitan Museum, serving as its President (1970-1977) and then chairman. He built up its Chinese galleries and served as a member of the Museum’s Centennial committee. He personally donated $20 million to the museum and led a fundraising campaign, which raised an additional $100 million.
The best and almost the only source of information on C. Douglas Dillon is to be found in the biography of his father called Clarence Dillon: Wall Street Enigma by Perez and Willett. Like General Lyman Lemnitzer, as a youth C. Douglas Dillon engaged in drastically anti-social behavior. He was expelled from school for throwing the teacher’s books out the window onto trolley tracks. He once deliberately tossed a match into a pail of gasoline for kicks, which touched off a major fire.
As Treasury Secretary, C. Douglas Dillon was in charge of the ATF and the Secret Service. Since the latter was almost certainly complicit in the assassination, that puts C. Douglas Dillon squarely in the center of the plot. As a Republican activist and the boyhood friend of all three Rockefeller brothers, Dillon had the connections to tie together the entire plan. Further, his business partners Ferdinand Eberstadt, James Forrestal, William Draper and Paul Nitze had almost dictated and written the crucial, formative part of U.S. history from 1935 at least up to and past 1963. When he testified before the Warren Commission, Allen Dulles called him “Doug” in the official transcripts and testimony. That pretty much says it all.
C. Douglas Dillon received the Medal of Freedom in 1989 and was also a member of the Society of Colonial Wars.
Dillon died of natural causes at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City at the age of 93.
The Joint Chiefs Of Staff
The Joint Chiefs of Staff do not figure prominently in the discussion of the National Security Council, or indeed in the entire discussion of the assassination. This is explained by the following facts:
First, before 1958, the Joint Chiefs were merely “advisors” to the NSC. After 1958, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was made a member of the NSC. But also in 1958, the Joint Chiefs were deprived of actual command of any troops or subordinates, save the direct staff of the Joint Chiefs.
Most people assume that the Joints Chiefs included the top commanders of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps. That was true before 1958. But the Joint Chiefs were divorced from their commands in the respective services. For this reason, in his book Countdown for Decision, recently retired General John B. Medaris of the Army described the Joints Chiefs as “a debating society.”
Second, when JFK established the Defense Intelligence Agency, all of the intelligence agencies of the branches were placed under the central control of the Defense Department, hence under the control of the Secretary of Defense, not under the control of the Joint Chiefs. This further removed the Joint Chiefs from having a central role in the assassination. It should be noted that JFK’s new Defense Intelligence Agency was weak, disorganized and he did not have a very good, quality relationship with other departments.
On October 1, 1962, JFK elevated General Maxwell Taylor to the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, replacing General Lyman Lemnitzer. In a book recently written and published by the Joint Chief of Staff itself, the poor relationship between JFK and the JCS is described:
By the time the Cuban missile crisis ended, relations between the Kennedy administration and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Taylor excepted) were at an all-time low. In contrast, Kennedy’s public stature and esteem had never been higher. Lauded by his admirers and critics alike for showing exemplary statesmanship, fortitude, and wisdom in steering the country through the most dangerous confrontation in history, the President emerged with his credibility and prestige measurably enhanced. But to end the crisis he made compromises and concessions that his military advisors considered in many ways unnecessary and excessive.
Since JFK’s close confidant General Maxwell Taylor was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs at the time of the assassination, their active participation in the plot was unlikely. Further, none of the individuals on the JSC on 11/22/1963 has any known connection to any of the facts and issues surrounding the plot itself. That is not to say, however, that some in the military or certain parts of military intellingence were not involved. They probably were, especially regarding the security in Dealey Plaza and the JFK autopsy. Also, as we shall see, the presence of a former Hitler associate as head of the NATO Defense Committee with offices in the Pentagon in 1963 throws
additional dark shadows over the military in regard to the assassination.
General Lyman
Lemnitzer
The discussion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the JFK assassination most properly relates to General Lyman Lemnitzer. Ironically, Lemnitzer was not a member of the Joint Chiefs at the time of the assassination. However, he is the only member of the JFK Joint Chiefs whose name is usually mentioned regarding the assassination. Fortunately, for JFK researchers, there is a very objective biography of Lemnitzer available, written by L. James Binder who was a former editor-in-chief of Army magazine.
It should be mentioned that in a closing chapter, there will be discussion of factor analysis and the assassination. However, just to tantalize the reader, it can be stated that out of 191 people analyzed in the factor analysis process, General Lyman Lemnitzer came out number 1 in being statistically associated with the assassination plot. This happens by virtue of Lemnitzer being associated quite often with the plot by many assassination authors and also because at the time of the assassination, he was head of NATO. In this position he could be described as an international leader. According to the statistics, this places Lemnitzer in dead-center of the international forces which caused the assassination to occur as well as being on the list of suspects.
In the interest of balance, we will begin the analysis of Lemnitzer (known almost universally as “Lem”), with the high opinion of Lemnitzer held by Col. Fletcher Prouty. We have already relied on information from author Prouty to get to the truth about the role of McGeorge Bundy in the assassination plot.
Prouty served either directly under (or closely with) Lemnitzer for an extended period. Prouty writes:
I was the first chief of the Office of Special Operations and continued in that office until 1964, while General Lyman Lemnitzer and, later, Gen. Maxwell Taylor were the chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (p.364,n.11)
Lemnitzer and his close friend Gen. David M. Shoup [Commandant] of the U.S. Marine Corps were traditional soldiers. They had never been “Cold Warriors” or Cold War enthusiasts…
Our analysis will be somewhat at odds with the high opinion expressed by Prouty, a circumstance of which you, the reader, will have to resolve for yourself. We will just attempt to present relevant facts. But one must also attempt to evaluate the character of Lemnitzer in order to decide whether he was involved in the plot. His visibility in the events surrounding the assassination is just too great to do otherwise.
It was a combination of circumstances which vaulted General Lemnitzer to the top of the list in re the assassination. On November, 1962 Lemnitzer was appointed as commander of NATO, effective on January 1, 1963.
To the JFK researcher, the salient points regarding Lemnitzer could be described as “rich in subtle controversy.” In the world of historical analysis of national leaders, Lemnitzer cuts a boring, but at the same time confusing, figure. This was because of his unorthodox career priorities and experiences. If you understand the confusing situation of Lemnitzer, then you can better understand the entire relationship of the military to JFK, to NATO and to the assassination.
To begin with, Lemnitzer’s biographer treats Lemnitzer (as in a phrase attributed to the sharp tongue of Alexander Pope) by “damning him with faint praise.” As a military author, biographer Binder minimizes outright criticism of Lemnitzer. But at the same time, there is the obvious omission of anything praiseworthy that might be expected from a military writer. The best that can be said is that Binder considered Lemnitzer harmless.
The reader can be offered the overall impression that biographer Binder presents of General Lemnitzer. He portrays Lem as a man, above all else, concerned with playing golf. He was very involved in affairs in his small town home of Honesdale, Pennsylvania and rarely expanded his scope of civic responsibilities beyond Honesdale. His main preoccupation was to fight to have dams or parks around Honesdale named after himself, as he believed was befitting his service. He was a man who fit best into a local Masonic Lodge (of which he was a devoted member).
Lemnitzer was born on August 29, 1899. He was raised a strict (presumably German) Lutheran. His ancestors had come to the U.S. from the province of Saxony in Germany. They came in 1860 and his grandfather immediately became embroiled in the Civil War raging in his new adoptive country. The story of Lemnitzer’s father is all too typical of the furtive atmosphere that surrounds Lemnitzer and his life story.
The family was always told that his father served time at the Confederate POW camp known as Libby Prison, in Richmond. After that, he was supposedly transfered to Andersonville Prison in Georgia. But when modern researchers discovered the truth, they found that his father was actually imprisoned in a Union stockade for 1 ½ years for desertion.
Like JFK’s Treasury Secretary, C. Douglas Dillon, Lemnitzer apparently had some antisocial tendencies as a youth. He and a friend built a pipe bomb a foot long and four inches in diameter and set it off near the downtown in Honesdale. Not surprisingly, the bomb brought down trees and hurled rocks into the air. This event (and the anger of the townspeople) was widely reported in the local newspaper. According to sources, Lemnitzer always considered this bomb as an achievement. He would continue this unfortunate attitude throughout his life and career. He tended to consider things to be achievements when they were in most respects embarrassments.
Lem served during peacetime at the key Far Eastern fortress of Corregidor. He became a protégé of General Stanley Embick. Embick, like Lem, was from rural Pennsylvania and was a successful but extremely eccentric military administrator and strategist. Embick’s unique, stubborn and persistent dislike of the British is treated as humorous by most writers and was as well by his contemporaries. Unlike most military men, Embick actively supported peace demonstrators in the streets. For Lem, Embick wrote the word “outstanding” where other evaluators wrote “mediocre.” Importantly, Lem was consistently rated as outstanding on only one quality: his ability to relate to civilians. Although his biographer does not comment on this sad fact, this ability is not what you would pick for a genuine military commander or hero, much less for the top military man in the country. Amazingly, being the top military man is where Lem eventually wound up.
At the time that Lem made a career of the Army, officers had to choose a track on which they would stay for the duration of their careers. Lem made the short-sighted choice of the (boring) coastal artillery. This branch would end up being abolished during his tenure there.
In World War II, Lem became chief of the Plans Division of the Army Ground Forces under Gen. Leslie McNair who, in turn, had Gen. Mark Clark as his boss as Chief of Staff. In 1942, Lem became a full Colonel. Two weeks later, he was a Brigadier General. He had risen from Major to General in 7 months. General Mark Clark was a favorite of Ike and Lem was a favorite of Clark.
In 1942, Clark and Lem were aboard a British submarine attempting to carry out Operation Kingpin. This operation involved a secret meeting with a Vichy-French General named Giraud who was then covertly transported by sub to meet with General Eisenhower at Gibralter. The bottom line of the mission was this: the fascist Vichy-French Admiral Francois Darlan remained in charge in French North Africa and Ike, Clark and Lem made a deal with him to support him in this role. This was despite the fact that he was an open ally of Hitler. FDR was furious about this and this mistake of judgment nearly got Eisenhower fired as commander in North Africa. In the eyes of some historians, this put a cloud over Ike for being neutral or insensitive on the issue of fascism. Yet for the rest of his life, Lem considered his minor participation in Kingpin as his greatest military achievement.
Lem was part of the problem-ridden capture of French North Africa. But for most of the remainder of the war, he was assigned to the command of British General Sir Harold Alexander. Lem and Alexander became friends for life.
Lem is given credit for being the chief planner for the landing at Anzio during the Italian Campaign. Again, in another example of a disaster masquerading as a succ
ess, Lem and Air Force General Lauris Norstad were the planners for the pointless and immoral destruction of the 1500-year-old historic landmark, the Abbey at Monte Cassino. Ironically, the names of Lemnitzer and Norstad are the two military names which are the most outstanding in the writings of assassination researchers. Norstad preceded Lem as Supreme Commander of NATO. And Nortstad came very close to being a member of the Warren Commission.
In his first openly shady operation, Lemnitzer and Allen Dulles were in Bern, Switzerland (in 1945) negotiating with German Nazi General Karl Wolff for the surrender of German forces in Italy. As we shall see over and over, the uncanny ability of Dulles to always wind up dealing with Nazis can be attributed to only one thing – essentially, he was one!
During Operation Sunrise, when Nazi General Wolff offered to surrender German forces in Italy, Lem’s biographer L. James Binder suggests that this information was kept from FDR. Allen Dulles and Lemnitzer may have been responsible for withholding the information, which, if true, would have been Lem’s first experience with committing treason.
It’s probably no accident that Lem found himself in the company of an unsavory person like Allen Dulles, stabbing his elected commander-in-chief in the back. Lemnitzer was apparently one of those people we have all encountered in the workplace. They get ahead, not on ability, but their willingness to do illegal or unethical things without asking questions. Apparently, that description fit the up-and-coming General Lyman Lemnitzer.
The negotiations over the surrender of Northern Italy by the Nazi’s involved one major issue. That was the question about how to prevent Stalin from having a hand in taking any Italian territory. The worry was that Stalin might get his hands on Vatican City. To a large extent, the possible Communist control of the Vatican would be the predominant worry in Europe from 1945 to 1963 and even into the 1970’s. The horror story headline would be “Commies take over Vatican City?” If not Armageddon, this would be at least a large down payment.