In addition to this memorandum, there was NSAM #56, “Evaluation of Paramilitary Requirements,” and NSAM #57, “Responsibility for Paramilitary Operations.” Each of these was signed and distributed in the normal manner by McGeorge Bundy for the President.
Carl von Clausewitz, 1780-1831. Prussian officer and military strategist.
The Joint Staff is the unit that supports the Joint Chiefs of Staff. At the time of which I am writing (1961) there were some four hundred people in this unit.
I was the pilot of a VIP aircraft used during these conferences by the British and Americans, and as pilot of this plane I carried the Chinese delegation from Cairo to Tehran for that meeting. Actually, Chiang Kai-shek and May Ling, who had been in Cairo, went to Tehran, and I believe they traveled on Roosevelt’s plane. I flew their staff of delegates only.
Although no relation to the previously mentioned Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell, Gen. Richard G. Stilwell was a friend and close associate of Vinegar Joe’s son, Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell, Jr., and a close associate of Lansdale.
It may be difficult, or at least unusual, for the inexperienced reader to see in such a structured report its real and far-reaching significance. I shall provide an important example:
Just before the election of John F Kennedy, on November 8, 1960, Gen. Edward G. Lansdale and I flew to Fort Gordon, Ga., to pick up elements of the Civil Affairs and Military Government curriculum, which was then used as the basis for drafting the new curriculum for the Army Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg.
At that time, we were both assigned to the Office of the Secretary of Defense. By late 1960, this Mutual Security Program report had filtered down from the Eisenhower White House, without comment but with the weight of apparent approval. As a top-level document of great potential, it then became fundamental to the development of the new Special Warfare curriculum as it was rewritten and merged with the material from Fort Gordon.
Because the Fort Bragg curriculum had the blessing of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, contained elements of a White House report, and was supported by the CIA, this whole layer of apparent authority became the Special Warfare and Special Air Warfare doctrine for dealing with Third World nations—particularly with Vietnam.
There were no specific approvals of all of the above. The author has no evidence or recollection that any of this was ever discussed with the Congress or with the Department of State. Yet, on the basis of these policy statements, evolved from the writings of Mao, among others, the U.S. Army had more or less defined a new Cold War role for military forces.
With this presentation the reader is getting a rare and unusual view of the inner workings of our government as it pertains to the development and utilization of the military in Cold War operations. This is exactly what is being done today in Central America, the Middle East, and Africa.
(Note for researchers: I have been able to acquire a copy of this report, “Training Under the Mutual Security Program,” May 15, 1959. It appears, complete, as Appendix 3 of my earlier book, The Secret Team.