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On October 5, 1895, Walter Bedell Smith, U.S. Army general (WWII) and head of CIA (1950-52), was born in Indianapolis, Indiana (d. 1961). From the article:
"Smith enlisted as a private in the Indiana Army National Guard in 1911. In 1917, during World War I, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant. He was wounded in the Aisne-Marne Offensive in 1918. After World War I, he was a staff officer and instructor at the U.S. Army Infantry School. In 1941, he became Secretary of the General Staff, and in 1942 he became the Secretary to the Combined Chiefs of Staff. His duties involved taking part in discussions of war plans at the highest level, and Smith often briefed President Franklin D. Roosevelt on strategic matters.
Smith became chief of staff to Eisenhower at AFHQ in September 1942. He acquired a reputation as Eisenhower's "hatchet man" for his brusque and demanding manner. However, he was also capable of representing Eisenhower in sensitive missions requiring diplomatic skill. Smith was involved in negotiating the armistice between Italy and the Allies, which he signed on behalf of Eisenhower. In 1944, he became the Chief of Staff of SHAEF, again under Eisenhower. In this position, Smith also negotiated successfully for food and fuel aid to be sent through German lines for the cold and starving Dutch civilian population, and opened discussions for the peaceful and complete German capitulation to the First Canadian Army in the Netherlands. In May 1945, Smith met representatives of the German High Command in Reims, France, to conduct the surrender of the German Armed Forces, and he signed the German Instrument of Surrender on behalf of General Eisenhower.
After World War II, he served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1946 to 1948. Then in 1950, Smith became the Director of Central Intelligence, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other intelligence agencies in the United States. Smith reorganized the CIA, redefined its structure and its mission, and he gave it a new sense of purpose. He made the CIA the arm of government primarily responsible for covert operations. He left the CIA in 1953 to become an Under Secretary of State. After retiring from the State Department in 1954, Smith continued to serve the Eisenhower Administration in various posts for several years, until his retirement and his death in 1961."
"Smith enlisted as a private in the Indiana Army National Guard in 1911. In 1917, during World War I, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant. He was wounded in the Aisne-Marne Offensive in 1918. After World War I, he was a staff officer and instructor at the U.S. Army Infantry School. In 1941, he became Secretary of the General Staff, and in 1942 he became the Secretary to the Combined Chiefs of Staff. His duties involved taking part in discussions of war plans at the highest level, and Smith often briefed President Franklin D. Roosevelt on strategic matters.
Smith became chief of staff to Eisenhower at AFHQ in September 1942. He acquired a reputation as Eisenhower's "hatchet man" for his brusque and demanding manner. However, he was also capable of representing Eisenhower in sensitive missions requiring diplomatic skill. Smith was involved in negotiating the armistice between Italy and the Allies, which he signed on behalf of Eisenhower. In 1944, he became the Chief of Staff of SHAEF, again under Eisenhower. In this position, Smith also negotiated successfully for food and fuel aid to be sent through German lines for the cold and starving Dutch civilian population, and opened discussions for the peaceful and complete German capitulation to the First Canadian Army in the Netherlands. In May 1945, Smith met representatives of the German High Command in Reims, France, to conduct the surrender of the German Armed Forces, and he signed the German Instrument of Surrender on behalf of General Eisenhower.
After World War II, he served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1946 to 1948. Then in 1950, Smith became the Director of Central Intelligence, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other intelligence agencies in the United States. Smith reorganized the CIA, redefined its structure and its mission, and he gave it a new sense of purpose. He made the CIA the arm of government primarily responsible for covert operations. He left the CIA in 1953 to become an Under Secretary of State. After retiring from the State Department in 1954, Smith continued to serve the Eisenhower Administration in various posts for several years, until his retirement and his death in 1961."
Walter Bedell Smith - Wikipedia
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WWII World War Two
World History
American History
Military History
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From Private to Secretary of the Combined Chiefs of Staff, advisor to the President. Inspirational
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Walter Bedell "Beetle" Smith was a senior U.S. Army general who served as General Dwight D. Eisenhower's chief-of-staff at Allied Forces Headquarters during ...
Thank you my friend SGT (Join to see) for making us aware that October 5 is the anniversary of the birth of WWI combat veteran of the American Expeditionary Forces, U.S. Army general (WWII) and head of CIA (1950-52), Walter Bedell "Beetle" Smith.
Image: Bedell Smith (center) with top Agency leaders, including outgoing DCI Hillenkoetter (to Smith’s left, in light suit), 7 October 1950.
1. Background from CIA cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2008-featured-story-archive/walter-bedell-smith.html
"A Look Back … Walter Bedell Smith Becomes DCI
The fourth Director of Central Intelligence, Gen. Walter Bedell Smith (1950-53), was one of CIA’s most successful and influential directors. A forceful manager with decided ideas about running CIA, Smith:
• Established a permanent system for daily intelligence reporting to the President
• Reorganized CIA missions at a crucial time in its history—the period of the Korean War—and
• Fostered cooperation within the emerging U.S. Intelligence Community.
A generation of Agency leaders following his tenure, and historians since, regard him as having “put CIA on the intelligence map” in terms of visibility and impact.
Smith made significant and durable changes in CIA that substantially improved the effectiveness of operations, support and analysis.
• Within CIA, Smith instituted the directorate structure that endures today.
• He resolved a debilitating conflict between foreign intelligence collectors and covert action operators (who also reported to the State Department) by merging their components into the Directorate of Plans,* whose leader reported directly to the DCI.
• He combined a collection of uncoordinated support functions into the Directorate of Administration.*
• To provide daily and topical intelligence analysis, Smith established offices dealing with current, military, economic and scientific analysis as part of a new Directorate of Intelligence.
• Lastly, to increase accountability in the new structure, he appointed the Agency’s first inspector general.
Smith Establishes Intelligence Bulletin for the President
Smith also established a permanent system for providing intelligence support to the White House. Besides the Office of Current Intelligence (OCI), which prepared material for Smith’s weekly briefings of President Truman, he launched the new Current Intelligence Bulletin and the Current Intelligence Weekly Review. He tailored these publications for the President and senior policymakers.
After President Truman received the first Bulletin, he wrote, “Dear Bedel [sic], I have been reading the intelligence bulletin and I am highly impressed with it. I believe you have hit the jackpot with this one.” The OCI and these publications continued largely unchanged for 25 years. Smith also established the precedent of providing intelligence briefings to presidential candidates and presidents-elect.
Central Oversight of National Intelligence
Three months after the North invaded the South, Smith created a Board and Office of National Estimates (BNE and ONE). These groups reported to the DCI. This change assured central oversight of national intelligence. This structure was responsible for producing and coordinating national intelligence estimates for a quarter century and was the forerunner of today’s National Intelligence Council.
Smith was especially determined that CIA should cooperate with Army intelligence in collecting and analyzing information about the conflict in Korea. In 1951, he requested that the National Security Council review how disparate military entities were handling COMINT (communications intelligence), an initiative that led to the creation of NSA.
By the time Smith left the CIA to become President Eisenhower’s Under Secretary of State, the Agency had consolidated the operational and analytical responsibilities it received under the National Security Act of 1947 and had assumed a preeminent status in the Intelligence Community.
According to Walter Pforzheimer, CIA’s original Legislative Counsel,
Smith was the greatest director [but] he doesn’t get the credit . . . General Smith was unbelievable. He really got the Agency firmly established . . . I think others would agree that he was a great Director, but he's not as well known as some others . . . It was very hard to have affection for General Smith, because he was so frosty and so chilly, but he was a very, very great man.
*The Directorate of Plans, established on Aug. 1, 1952, was the forerunner of today’s National Clandestine Service. The Directorate of Administration was established in 1950 and lasted until 2001. In 2001, the Directorate of Administration was replaced with the offices of the Chief Financial Officer, Chief Information Officer, Global Support, Human Resources and Security Mission Support."
2. Background from Arlinton Cemetary at arlingtoncemetery.net/wbsmith.htm
"Some say that "Beetle" Smith, as he was called by contemporaries, had the countenance of a Bulldog and needed that temperment to fill the assigned role as hatchet man for an affable Supreme Allied Commander, Dwight D. Eisenhower. He may have acquired that, along with a brusque manner and a salty vocubulary, in his first service as a Private in the Indiana National Guard.
He entered the U.S. Army in 1917 as an Infantry Reserve Officer, and served in France with the 4th Division in World War I.
When General George C. Marshall became the Army's wartime Chief of Staff, he called in Major Smith, a protege, to be Assistant to the Secretary of the General Staff. He moved up to Secretary in September 1941 and in Febraury 1942 was named U.S. Secretary of the Combined Chiefs of Staff. Just before the invasion of North Africa, Marshall sent him to England to be Eisenhower's Chief of Staff. He filled that role until the German surrender, which he stage-managed for his boss. Ike subsequently called him "the greatest general manager of the war."
Following the war, he served as U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union; Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); and Under Secretary of State.
He died as a Full General at the age of 65 of a heart attack on August 9, 1961 at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington. He was subsequently buried in Section 7 of Arlington National Cemetery. His wife, Mary Eleanor Smith (1893-1963), is buried with him.
Walter Bedell ("Beetle") Smith, a career soldier, was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, and served as Second Lieutenant in the First World War.
During World War II, he was General Dwight D. Eisenhower's Chief of Staff, reaching the rank of Lieutenant General by 1943.
As General Eisenhower's, representative, he negotiated and signed the terms of surrender with Italy in 1943, and Germany in 1945.
After the war, President Harry S. Truman appointed Smith as Ambassador to the Soviet Union. Smith later served as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency under President Truman from 1950 to 1953. During Smith's tour in Moscow, Soviet-backed governments were installed in Eastern Europe, and tensions mounted between the United States and the USSR."
Walter Bedell Smith computer audio account - only one with sound :-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFxVYjNWRyk
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Orlando Illi Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. 'Bill' Price CPT Jack Durish Capt Tom Brown CMSgt (Join to see) MSG Andrew White SFC William Farrell Sgt Albert Castro SSG David Andrews Sgt Randy Wilber Sgt John H. SGT Charles H. Hawes SGT Mark Halmrast PO1 William "Chip" Nagel CPT Gabe SnellLTC Greg Henning SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL
Image: Bedell Smith (center) with top Agency leaders, including outgoing DCI Hillenkoetter (to Smith’s left, in light suit), 7 October 1950.
1. Background from CIA cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2008-featured-story-archive/walter-bedell-smith.html
"A Look Back … Walter Bedell Smith Becomes DCI
The fourth Director of Central Intelligence, Gen. Walter Bedell Smith (1950-53), was one of CIA’s most successful and influential directors. A forceful manager with decided ideas about running CIA, Smith:
• Established a permanent system for daily intelligence reporting to the President
• Reorganized CIA missions at a crucial time in its history—the period of the Korean War—and
• Fostered cooperation within the emerging U.S. Intelligence Community.
A generation of Agency leaders following his tenure, and historians since, regard him as having “put CIA on the intelligence map” in terms of visibility and impact.
Smith made significant and durable changes in CIA that substantially improved the effectiveness of operations, support and analysis.
• Within CIA, Smith instituted the directorate structure that endures today.
• He resolved a debilitating conflict between foreign intelligence collectors and covert action operators (who also reported to the State Department) by merging their components into the Directorate of Plans,* whose leader reported directly to the DCI.
• He combined a collection of uncoordinated support functions into the Directorate of Administration.*
• To provide daily and topical intelligence analysis, Smith established offices dealing with current, military, economic and scientific analysis as part of a new Directorate of Intelligence.
• Lastly, to increase accountability in the new structure, he appointed the Agency’s first inspector general.
Smith Establishes Intelligence Bulletin for the President
Smith also established a permanent system for providing intelligence support to the White House. Besides the Office of Current Intelligence (OCI), which prepared material for Smith’s weekly briefings of President Truman, he launched the new Current Intelligence Bulletin and the Current Intelligence Weekly Review. He tailored these publications for the President and senior policymakers.
After President Truman received the first Bulletin, he wrote, “Dear Bedel [sic], I have been reading the intelligence bulletin and I am highly impressed with it. I believe you have hit the jackpot with this one.” The OCI and these publications continued largely unchanged for 25 years. Smith also established the precedent of providing intelligence briefings to presidential candidates and presidents-elect.
Central Oversight of National Intelligence
Three months after the North invaded the South, Smith created a Board and Office of National Estimates (BNE and ONE). These groups reported to the DCI. This change assured central oversight of national intelligence. This structure was responsible for producing and coordinating national intelligence estimates for a quarter century and was the forerunner of today’s National Intelligence Council.
Smith was especially determined that CIA should cooperate with Army intelligence in collecting and analyzing information about the conflict in Korea. In 1951, he requested that the National Security Council review how disparate military entities were handling COMINT (communications intelligence), an initiative that led to the creation of NSA.
By the time Smith left the CIA to become President Eisenhower’s Under Secretary of State, the Agency had consolidated the operational and analytical responsibilities it received under the National Security Act of 1947 and had assumed a preeminent status in the Intelligence Community.
According to Walter Pforzheimer, CIA’s original Legislative Counsel,
Smith was the greatest director [but] he doesn’t get the credit . . . General Smith was unbelievable. He really got the Agency firmly established . . . I think others would agree that he was a great Director, but he's not as well known as some others . . . It was very hard to have affection for General Smith, because he was so frosty and so chilly, but he was a very, very great man.
*The Directorate of Plans, established on Aug. 1, 1952, was the forerunner of today’s National Clandestine Service. The Directorate of Administration was established in 1950 and lasted until 2001. In 2001, the Directorate of Administration was replaced with the offices of the Chief Financial Officer, Chief Information Officer, Global Support, Human Resources and Security Mission Support."
2. Background from Arlinton Cemetary at arlingtoncemetery.net/wbsmith.htm
"Some say that "Beetle" Smith, as he was called by contemporaries, had the countenance of a Bulldog and needed that temperment to fill the assigned role as hatchet man for an affable Supreme Allied Commander, Dwight D. Eisenhower. He may have acquired that, along with a brusque manner and a salty vocubulary, in his first service as a Private in the Indiana National Guard.
He entered the U.S. Army in 1917 as an Infantry Reserve Officer, and served in France with the 4th Division in World War I.
When General George C. Marshall became the Army's wartime Chief of Staff, he called in Major Smith, a protege, to be Assistant to the Secretary of the General Staff. He moved up to Secretary in September 1941 and in Febraury 1942 was named U.S. Secretary of the Combined Chiefs of Staff. Just before the invasion of North Africa, Marshall sent him to England to be Eisenhower's Chief of Staff. He filled that role until the German surrender, which he stage-managed for his boss. Ike subsequently called him "the greatest general manager of the war."
Following the war, he served as U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union; Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); and Under Secretary of State.
He died as a Full General at the age of 65 of a heart attack on August 9, 1961 at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington. He was subsequently buried in Section 7 of Arlington National Cemetery. His wife, Mary Eleanor Smith (1893-1963), is buried with him.
Walter Bedell ("Beetle") Smith, a career soldier, was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, and served as Second Lieutenant in the First World War.
During World War II, he was General Dwight D. Eisenhower's Chief of Staff, reaching the rank of Lieutenant General by 1943.
As General Eisenhower's, representative, he negotiated and signed the terms of surrender with Italy in 1943, and Germany in 1945.
After the war, President Harry S. Truman appointed Smith as Ambassador to the Soviet Union. Smith later served as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency under President Truman from 1950 to 1953. During Smith's tour in Moscow, Soviet-backed governments were installed in Eastern Europe, and tensions mounted between the United States and the USSR."
Walter Bedell Smith computer audio account - only one with sound :-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFxVYjNWRyk
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Orlando Illi Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. 'Bill' Price CPT Jack Durish Capt Tom Brown CMSgt (Join to see) MSG Andrew White SFC William Farrell Sgt Albert Castro SSG David Andrews Sgt Randy Wilber Sgt John H. SGT Charles H. Hawes SGT Mark Halmrast PO1 William "Chip" Nagel CPT Gabe SnellLTC Greg Henning SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL
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