by J. W Lateer
Lemnitzer’s probable role in betraying FDR happened because FDR considered good relations with Stalin to be necessary in order to finalize the war and to maintain order in Europe. Even Eisenhower believed that cooperating with Stalin had allowed the war to be won and was well worth it.
Think about it. Co-operating with Stalin enabled the defeat of fascism. All of the U.S. Generals in Europe assumed that such co-operation on some level would continue to yield benefits well after the war. But we know that even before WWII, there were some Americans who were secretly rooting for Hitler. This might even have included (in their heart-of-hearts) Herbert Hoover or General Douglas MacArthur. (In fairness to MacArthur, he apparently sincerely believed in imposing American, not fascist, values on the Japanese when he was in charge of the occupation).
The reality is that the pro-fascists never really changed their stripes because they thought, deep down, that the first priority should have been defeating Communism rather than tangling with Hitler. After the War, the anti-Communist, pro-fascists made a comeback. They launched the Red Scares and McCarthyism. Fortunately, there were Generals in the military like Eisenhower and George Marshall whose top priority was democracy. Like FDR, they had no use for fascism, though Marshall admired Chiang Kai-shek to the very end and Ike was all too willing to wink at McCarthyism and follow the misguided advice of Allen Dulles.
Following WWII, Lem’s commander in the war, General Alexander, became governor-general of Canada for 6 years. The two would remain lifelong friends. After the War, Lem succeeded his mentor General Stanley Embick as the Army representative on the four-person Joint Strategic Survey Committee (JSSC) which had overall charge of strategic planning for the military.
In 1948, Lem was called to the Office of James Forrestal, the first Secretary of Defense. He was named to the Military Committee of the Five Powers (the Brussels Pact) with the U.K., France, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxemborg. He was chosen because of his experience working under British General Alexander in World War II.
This Committee of the Five Powers soon developed into NATO. As we will see later, this opportunity to be there at the birth of NATO probably caused Lem to have more loyalty to NATO than to America when he was forced to chose in 1963. That’s probable, but not necessarily proven by evidence.
The manager of the Office of Military Affairs at the Pentagon was Najeeb E. Halaby. He was a friend and close associate of Lem’s at the Pentagon. Lem’s biographer describes the resignation (and soon after), the death of Secretary of Defense James Forrestal. Binder calls it “an assumed suicide,” a tragedy which occurred around this same time.
Lem’s associate Najeeb E. Halaby, had what could be called a shadowy career. He was a graduate of Stanford and Yale Law School. At the time he was working with Lem, he had been advisor to King Ibn Saud of Saudia Arabia. He then helped Paul Nitze write NSC 68, which set in motion the Cold War, the Hydrogen bomb and other such sinister forces. In 1953, Halaby became affiliated with the Rockefeller family.
When Ike became president, he put Lem on a committee which decided whether the U.S. strategic policy should be 1) containment 2) roll-back or 3) drawing a line in the sand to justify a nuclear attack. The committee was headed by George F. Kennan and it decided on the option of containment. Ike started the “new look” which opted for the alternative of massive retaliation over conventional war-making. This was less expensive and allowed for major cuts to conventional forces. As a strategy, massive retaliation was also highly favored by West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer.
In 1955, Lem got his 4th star and was put in charge of the Far East Command. On October 4, 1957, he was named Vice-Chief of Staff for the Army and second in command to General Maxwell Taylor. (Taylor would become a long-term rival of Lemnitzer). Lem was soon involved with the Redstone missile facility involving Wernher von Braun and General John B. Medaris, followed by the launching of Sputnik. He was next put in charge of the transfer of the missile scientists to NASA. Eisenhower once made the statement “Lem is a lot smarter than Max [General Maxwell Taylor]”. This idle assessment and comment portended much for the future of the two and ultimately for JFK.
The Defense Reorganization Act of 1958 ended the JCS committee system and took away the actual command of the military branches from the JCS. General Medaris thought this turned the JCS into a “debating society.” It gave the President much more control over the Army and the Defense Department. At this time, General Lauris Norstad as commander of NATO advocated the use of military force to open a road to Berlin but Eisenhower refused.
Around 1958, three top generals, Maxwell Taylor, James Gavin and Matthew Ridgeway, all left the Army over differences about policy. General John B. Medaris, (head of the Redstone Arsenal) also resigned in protest in order to write a very critical book on policy. In his book, Medaris wrote that Eisenhower was actually a below-average military mind and was making some bad military decisions. On July 1, 1959, Eisenhower appointed Lem as Chief of Staff for the Army.
Lemnitzer’s biographer L. James Binder wrote that Lemnitzer was non-partisan “to a fault” and that even his immediate family did not know how he voted. After the political conventions of 1960 were over, Ike named Lemnitzer as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In this role, he was the leader of the JCS in advising the National Security Council. In March 1960, Ike started a paramilitary campaign against Castro under the “Special Group” (also called the 5412 Committee) which included the State and Defense Departments, the CIA and the National Security Office. When the abortive Bay of Pigs was attempted and then failed, Lem ordered the JCS to remain silent and not to respond to criticism from any quarter.
When JFK assumed the office of President, Lemnitzer met with the new cabinet. He offered seven alternatives to deal with the threat of Castro: 1) non-military pressure, 2) fomenting an internal uprising 3) a “Cuban” (covert) invasion force 4) employment of U.S.-supported guerrilla forces 5) an invasion of “volunteers” with overt U.S. military support 6) a U.S. military invasion accompanied by Latin American “volunteers” and 7) a unilateral U.S. military invasion. Five days later, the JCS sent McNamara a recommendation for forceful action. The following day, JFK met with LBJ, Rusk, McNamara, Bundy, Lemnitzer, Dulles and Paul Nitze (Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs). Most of the CIA and the military estimated that the chance of success for the Bay of Pigs invasion was from 15% to 20%. Ordinarily, this would have meant cancellation of the mission.
Following the failure at the Bay of Pigs, there was a closed hearing on it before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Although Senators Wayne Morse and Homer Capehart supported Lemnitzer, Albert Gore and Russell Long called for him to be fired. In the wake of the Bay of Pigs, Allen Dulles, Richard Bissell and General Charles P. Cabell were fired from the CIA. All of the Joint Chiefs of Staff kept their jobs. In addition, around this time General Lauris Norstad was forced out as Supreme Commander of NATO by JFK and McNamara.
In his new administration, JFK tended to use ad hoc committees instead of existing committees and structures. Lem knew the Joint Chiefs were being bypassed by JFK. Because of his strong feelings about such things, JFK appointed General Maxwell Taylor as his military advisor in the White House. Thus, he interposed General Taylor between himself and the Joint Chiefs.
At a July 20, 1961 meeting of the National Security Council, General Thomas Francis Hickey, chairman of the Net Evaluation Subcommittee of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was in the midst of presenting a plan for a surprise nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. Incredibly, this attack was planned for 1963, two years later. According to the plan, it would be preceded by a “period of heightened tensions.” The main proponents of this plan, according to a military aide to Vice-President Johnson, were the two old cronies Lyman Lemnitzer and Allen Dulles.
LBJ was not present at the meeting. As they had done in World War II, Lem and Dulles were working as a team on this and as usual, the cynical Dulles was apparently using the suggestible Lem
nitzer as the military front man (and fall-guy) for this absurd proposal. JFK asked 1) how many Russians would be killed and 2) how long would Americans have to wait underground in fallout shelters to survive? According to an oral history recorded by Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatric, when Kennedy heard the answers and realized how disgusting the discussion was, he stood up and abruptly walked out of the meeting.
On March 13, 1962, the JCS proposed the infamous Operations Northwoods to JFK. The documents which revealed this plan were not declassified until November 18, 1997. This incredible plan would have involved the Joint Chiefs of Staff in planning and carrying out real bombings and similar events on U.S. streets. It would have killed innocent Americans in order to blame Castro and justify a U.S. invasion of Cuba. Lemnitzer’s biography was published in 1997 and Binder didn’t mention Operation Northwoods. The information on Northwoods apparently wasn’t available to him.
Per Binder, McGeorge Bundy, JFK’s National Security Advisor was unhappy with the arrangement where Maxwell Taylor became JFK’s military advisor. Taylor’s decisions dealt with intelligence, Berlin and Southeast Asia.
Lemnitzer was not a proponent of the Vietnam War. He voiced hesitancy about prospects for success in Southeast Asia and felt a war there would drain crucial resources from NATO. When he did voice his opinion on the issue, he advocated a direct military attack against North Vietnam.
It became clear to Lemnitzer that he would not be reappointed to a second term as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In the Spring of 1962, Lemnitzer was invited to the home of his WWII commander, Field Marshall Earl Alexander near Windsor Castle in England. Alexander asked him whether he would like to become head of NATO. When he got back to Washington, he received a visit from a military attaché from the West German Embassy. This man told Lemnitzer he was acting on behalf of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. The attaché made the same proposal to Lem as had Alexander.
Despite the fact that the next man in line for the NATO post was General Earle Wheeler, JFK gave in to pressure from Prime Minister Harold MacMillan and German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and appointed Lemnitzer. It was technically illegal for Lemitzer to assume the post, since by law it had to be held by a person on active duty. The law did not include a retired officer as being on active duty, even if recalled into that status.
Lemnitzer served well as NATO commander in all respects, being especially attentive to the errant President of France Charles de Gaulle. De Gaulle had a special interview with Lem prior to his being appointed NATO commander. Oddly, Lemnitzer happened to be appearing with de Gaulle at a public ceremony when the 3rd major assassination attempt against de Gaulle occurred. (Some say it was actually the 7th). This was the “flower pot bomb.” It was organized by Jean-Jacques Susini, a co-founder of the OAS and the second-in-command to Jacques Soustelle, who was a long-time asset of British Intelligence and like Susini, was also living at the time under the protection of Italian intelligence.
This assassination attempt is known as the attempt at the Toulon Memorial. The attempt failed because the bomb in the flower pot had become rain-soaked and burned rather than exploded. No one will ever know if the presence of Lemnitzer at this attempt to kill de Gaulle was coincidental or if there was a more sinister connection. (In JFK research, it usually turns out that there are no really honest coincidences).
Lemnitzer died on November 12, 1988 in Washington, D. C.
To summarize, the examination of the life and career of Lyman Lemnitzer yields the following issues and conclusion for the JFK researcher:
Lemnitzer had a history of co-operation with Allen Dulles in dealing with Nazis and had been part of the Darlan affair and boasted about it, which could indicate an indifference about the issue of fascism.
While Lemnitzer was not a political partisan or McCarthyite like Generals Willoughby, MacArthur and Wedemeyer, he was attuned to civilian politics and well informed about issues current in the Congress.
He was “hired” as head of NATO by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and the British, and not selected by JFK.
He had been insulted by JFK over the disastrous Bay of Pigs and for the plan for a pre-emptive nuclear strike against Russia scheduled for 1963. Finally, he was not reappointed for Chairman of the JCS because of the criminal Operation Northwoods plan with which he had been involved. There was probably no love lost between Lem and JFK.
There was evidence that the money for the plots to kill de Gaulle had run through NATO headquarters, before or possibly during Lemnitzer’s tenure there. There was at least one attempt on de Gaulle when Lem was commander of NATO.
As NATO commander, Lemnitzer would probably have placed his responsibility to NATO above his responsibility to JFK. This would be because Lemnitzer had been involved in the founding of NATO. His predecessor at NATO (and Lem’s long-time associate) General Lauris Norstad had refused to answer the question of whether he would prioritize NATO over the U.S. should he have to choose.
He was neutral when it came to his opinion of General Charles de Gaulle. De Gaulle was heartily disliked by the fascists who murdered JFK.
In part because of the endorsement of Lemnitzer by author Col Fletcher Prouty and because of his generally non-conspiratorial and non-partisan history, it is difficult to clearly determine whether Lemnitzer was part of the plot to murder JFK. However, if he found himself in a bad position on that issue, he wouldn’t have been a hero, either. The bottom line is that Lemnitzer was a go-along guy. Given his pivotal position in NATO, he has to be considered a part of the plot nevertheless. This is backed up by the statistical analysis which will be presented in a closing chapter.
Notes:
Final Judgment: The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy by Michael Collins Piper p 319.
The National Security Council: An Organizational Assessment, by Richard A. Best, Jr. December 28, 2011, www.crs.gov, RL30840.
Notes McGeorge Bundy
The information in this chapter about McGeorge Bundy can be found in Wikipedia under McGeorge Bundy, recovered on 10-12-16:
Another source of the information in this chapter is the biography of the Bundy brothers by Kai Bird called The Color of Truth: McGeorge Bundy and William Bundy: Brothers in Arms.
The quotations from Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. can be found in A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy In The White House (1965).
The material from author Col L. Fletcher Prouty is from JFK: The CIA, Vietnam and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy.
Notes Walt Whitman Rostow
The information in this chapter on Walt W. Rostow is widely available and can be found on several internet sites which present general information on major figures such as Rostow; specifically, one such source is http:/wilsoncenter.org.
Notes Dean Rusk
Some of the general information on Rusk is found at page 425 of Congressional Directory, 89th Congress, Second Session, January 1966.
On the internet, by far the best source on Rusk is his brief biography to be found at Anonymous. “Biography of Dean Rusk”. Davidson College. Retrieved 2008-02-03. https://www.davidson.edu/offices/international-studies-program/about-dean-rusk-31.
Another internet source is “Famed Fraternity Members.” Kappa Alpha Order. Retrieved 2008-02-03.
Also consult “Parks Rusk Collection of Dean Rusk Papers”. Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies. University of Georgia. pp. Biographical Note. Archived from the original on May 17, 2008. Retrieved 2008-02-04.
Finally, there are the memoirs of Rusk called As I Saw It, by Dean Rusk and Tom Rusk.
Notes Robert S McNamara
As we have seen in previous chapters, much of the best and most concise analysis about the policy problems involved in the JFK assassination can be found in JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy by Col. L. Fletcher Prouty. His book is cited again in this section.
For information on McNamara, including that which is presented in this chapter, refer to C
ounselor: A Life At The Edge Of History by Theodore Sorensen.
Another obvious reference is In Restrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam by Robert S. McNamara.
A book which is specifically referenced in the above section is In The Name Of Science by H. L. Neiburg. This book is a classic which describes in detail the issues of technology and weaponry in the Eisenhower and JFK administrations.
There was a film called The Fog Of War: Lessons From The Life Of Robert S. McNamara for which a transcript is available for reference related to McNamara.
Notes C Douglas Dillon
As mentioned in the chapter, the best source of information about Dillon is found in the book Clarence Dillon: Wall Street Enigma by Robert C. Perez and Edward F. Willett beginning on page 136.
There is also a brief biography called “C. Douglas Dillon” at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.
Chapter 14
Roy Frankhouser and Dan Burros
As mentioned in the prior chapter dealing with the National Security Council and the assassination, Roy Frankhouser claimed in an interview that he worked on the JFK assassination as an agent of the National Security Council. This sensational claim merits both further discussion and an examination of the activities of Frankhouser in the years before and after the assassination.
Roy Everett Frankhouser, Jr. (often misspelled as “Frankhauser”), was born on November 4, 1939. His father was Roy E. Frankhouser, Sr. and his mother was Dorothy Butler Frankhouser. His most noteworthy office which was publicly known was as Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in Pennsylvania. He also had numerous other connections. Two of these were with the American Nazi Party and as a security consultant to Lyndon LaRouche and the LaRouche organization. Frankhouser was reported by federal officials to have been arrested at least 142 times, according to the New York Times. He was convicted of federal crimes in at least three cases, including dealing in stolen explosives and obstruction of justice. Irwin Suall, of the Anti-Defamation League, called Frankhouser “a thread that runs through the history of American hate groups”. No one person described in JFK assassination research can match the diversity and ingenuity of Frankhouser in his clandestine career as an infiltrator and as an informant. Not even Lee Harvey Oswald.