7: Truman Likes Ike
Upon returning to the U.S. in the summer of 1948, former Ambassador William Douglas Pawley immersed himself in President Truman’s re-election, meeting off-the-record with the President on July 6th. In attendance were several cabinet members including Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal and Attorney General Tom C. Clark, who some two years later would be sitting as an Associate Justice serving on the United States Supreme Court when Annie Pawley’s case against William came before it.1
That same day Pawley had written from his Belvoir farm address in Virginia to the Secretary State to let him know that while visiting Cuba in June he had spoken for an hour to Cuban President Carlos Prio Socarras who was “looking forward to an invitation to visit the United States in the immediate future.
Pawley thought Prio should come to the U.S. first before visiting Venezuela and Mexico where he had already been invited. Prio confirmed his agreement “in a discussion with Mr. Burke [probably Burt] Hedges, an important American industrialist who has resided in Havana since his childhood.” Pawley described Prio as an “Ardent anticommunist” which was important in light of the “substantial headway” communism was making in the Americas—“Venezuela and Mexico, run Cuba a good second.”
Pawley hoped General Bradley would invite Prio to visit “some of our military establishments” and that “during Prio’s visit to Washington a great deal can be done to influence him toward enacting labor legislation that will in no way deprive labor of the principal objectives gained in recent years, but will not completely kill all investment incentive and the survival of business, which has made Cuba such a prosperous country.” In closing, Pawley wrote that there were “a number of other things which he discussed but which I do not feel free to talk about, except with you personally or with Mr. Lovett or Mr. Armour.”2
On July 22, 1948, Pawley attended his second campaign meeting in the White House at 8 p.m. in the evening. Again, Attorney General Tom Clark was there along with Clark Clifford and other political advisors. The topic was the selection of more members to the Democratic National Committee’s Finance Committee. According to Chapman, the group selected Oscar Ewing and “Bill Pawley.” The following week The New York Times reported that the group also considered two men for chairman: Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, and William Pawley. Whitney rejected the offer, but, instead of Pawley, the group eventually chose Louis Johnson.4
Johnson would raise $1.5 million for Truman’s whistle-stop campaign. Cornelius “Sonny” Vanderbilt Whitney, who helped found and finance Juan Trippe’s Pan American Airways would lend the DNC “money when things were at their gloomiest” and be rewarded after Truman’s re-election with a promotion to Under Secretary of Commerce. Also helping out that summer was the husband of famed aviatrix Jacqueline Cochrane, Floyd B. Odlum, who headed Atlas Corp. a conglomerate with interests in Consolidated Vultee, United Fruit, and American & Foreign Power. For his part, Pawley as well as Averill W. Harriman and other former Ambassadors would each kick in the legal limit of $5,000.5
In 1948, Harriman was assigned to Paris to oversee the administration of the Marshall Plan for Europe’s recovery from the devastation of World War II. One of his aides at the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA) in Paris was E. Howard Hunt, a former writer for publisher Henry Luce and then a member of the Office of Strategic Services in the Far East. Hunt’s wife, Dorothy Louise Goutierre Hunt, also worked for the ECA. As fate would have it, Hunt’s request for a raise from ECA was turned down so he resigned and joined the CIA in November 1949, despite an FBI background check that revealed that “Paris informants” described him as highly intelligent and imaginative but also blindly selfish and egotistical to both colleagues and superiors.” He would spend the next four years in Mexico as Chief of Station and then Chief of Mission. In the early Sixties with the CIA, he would become intertwined with Pawley on planning an invasion of Cuba.6
On September 7, 1948, Horton R. Telford, Legal Attaché, Paris, France, sent a letter to FBI Director Hoover regarding William Pawley whose name he misspelled as Pauley. Telford had dinner on September 1st with William and Edna Pawley, John S. (“Shipwreck”) Kelly and his wife, and Albert Dewey, of Washington, D.C. Pawley regaled them with tales about his South American ambassadorship before expressing his disdain for ex-Ambassador Spruille Braden who “was given his first government post by President Roosevelt through the pressure of the CIO.” Pawley also claimed that the labor organization envisioned Braden becoming Secretary of State and he “alleged that [Gustavo Duran] was forced onto Braden by the CIO and that while in Cuba he, Duran, organized and controlled the Cuban Communist Party.” Pawley believes Braden is “a Communist sympathizer” who diverted attention toward Nazis and away from the Red menace while forcing the FBI “to withdraw from the foreign field.”
According to Telford, Pawley may have “conducted a personal investigation of Duran the results of which he made known to Secretary Marshall, the President and Attorney General Clark.” As a 100% backer of the FBI who enthusiastically praises Director Hoover, Pawley “fought to the end against their withdrawal from South America, having made special trips to Washington to defend the Bureau. On one occasion he told President Truman that withdrawing the FBI from SIS was a greater disaster to our country than Pearl Harbor, and he still thinks so.” Telford concluded (after a redacted paragraph) by mentioning that William and Edna were “now on vacation and will still visit several other European countries before returning to the States in October.”7
Rather than being on a vacation, Pawley, at the behest of the Truman Administration, was negotiating air bases in Spain with General Francisco Franco8 who some Americans considered a fascist dictator for his suppression of opposing views.
While Pawley was gaining a reputation as a friend of the FBI, some 12,000 others were added to a security index of disloyal Americans and suspected communists whom Director Hoover wanted rounded up and imprisoned in military facilities to “protect the country against treason, espionage and sabotage.” The plan to suspend habeas corpus on orders of President Truman first caught Hoover’s fancy in March of 1946. In August 1948, “Attorney General Tom Clark gave the F.B.I. the power to make a master list of such people.” The decision rested in the National Security Council which included “the president, the secretary of defense, the secretary of state and the military chiefs” and Sidney W. Souers, a special national security advisor to President Truman. Souers was soon named the first director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Although the law incorporating the detention of radicals was passed in September 1950, President Truman never called for a roundup even after declaring a national emergency three months later when China entered Korea.9
Back in Miami on October 19, 1948, Pawley wrote to Secretary Marshall at the American Embassy in Paris and mentioned that he was having serious labor problems at his recently acquired Miami Transit Company. Pawley’s decision to take over the transportation company was made after learning that “the head of the local labor union was actually running” Miami Transit “permitting many payments of extremely substantial sums” which were practically bankrupting the company. Pawley staed, “I purchased it with outstanding obligations in excess of $1,500,000 in addition to the price that I paid for the stock and the $1,300,000 needed for new equipment purchased by me two months ago.”
When Pawley took steps to run the company “this labor leader became indignant, and immediately a breakdown in service commenced, which grew into actual sabotage of an extremely serious character.” Pawley “told the City Commission that Mr. Frazier, the labor leader, had publicly expressed himself, prior to my arrival, as determined to bankrupt the company.” Fortunately, Pawley told Marshall “the A.F. of L. in Detroit and Washington have taken a hand in an effort to clean up this bad situation” and Pawley believed “the company can now be saved.”
Pawley also informed the Secretary of State “that Mrs. Pawley would leave Sunday, October 24th for Paris.” He then turned his attention to Truman. “I saw the President at the White House on Saturday afternoon and again here in Miami yesterday where he addressed the American Legion. I explained to him that I was returning to Paris Sunday in order that my services would be at your disposal for the duration of the Conference. The President, on both occasions, requested that I not leave before the election. I told the President that I had already personally advanced $15,000 toward the campaign and that I had very little opportunity to do anything further and therefore would like to keep the schedule as planned.”
Pawley emphasized his loyalty to Truman. “As you know, Mr. Secretary, I am not a candidate for any post, nor am I seeking any favors, but I do have a very deep personal regard and friendship for President Truman and under no circumstance do I want him to think that I am neglecting his interest, which is certainly not the case.” He concluded by indicating he would “await word from Mr. Lovett as to your views.”10
Carlisle H. Humelsine on October 28th informed Pawley at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington that Marshall wants him to set his own travel date and just let him know “of your and Edna’s movements.”11 A week later, President Truman unexpectedly defeated his Republican opponent, Thomas Dewey.
Truman’s surprising victory made him a target again of The New York Times which wrote on November 8, 1948, that some diplomats were critical of presidents handpicking special envoys under the headline “U.S. Diplomats Abroad Deplore Private Envoys: Unofficial Representatives Have Confused Foreign Governments and Our Staffs.”12
Pawley’s own attempts to influence foreign policy included sending a letter to Secretary of State Dean Acheson suggesting that a group of up to 150 civilian economic advisors and retired military officers be sent to Taiwan to support Chiang in his opposition to Mao’s communists who were taking over the Chinese mainland. While this initiative may have been spurred by the head of Reynolds Aluminum which had interests in Taiwan, it undoubtedly was one Pawley could easily get behind. Acheson was willing to support the use of civilians for bolstering Taiwan, but he voiced opposition to the involvement of military advisors. Nonetheless, Admiral Charles Cooke approached conservative Admiral William Leahy who was more sympathetic to the Nationalists than the Truman administration was, and Cooke eventually led the informal group of advisors.
In January 1950, Commerce International China, a subsidiary of World Commerce Corporation, was established to provide the advisors to Chiang. The parent company was controlled by former Office of Strategic Services head William Donovan, and its president was Frank T. Ryan, who had been in the OSS in Spain. Others involved in the company were W.T. Keswick, a British intelligence chief in Asia; Nelson Rockefeller who had begun supplying medical drugs to China Defense Supplies, Inc., a Delaware chartered corporation founded by T.V. Soong; former War Department Assistant Secretary John J. McCloy; and not surprisingly, William Douglas Pawley. They believed strong support for their effort would roll in once Truman was out of office, and Donovan believed the communists could be thwarted if General Claire Chennault was named minister of defense for the exile regime.13
Chennault, however, wanted nothing to do with Pawley after the war. The proof of this lay in the fact that when Pawley was Ambassador to Brazil, he offered $10,000 to George “Pappy” Paxton to start a Flying Tiger Association for former members of the American Volunteer Group. When Chennault heard about Pawley’s gift, he telegrammed Paxton: “Will not accept membership in any organization with Pawley who was never a member of the AVG and who failed to serve us in the most critical hour.”14
John J. McCloy was known for his wisdom. He had served as Assistant Secretary of War during World War II and helped guide Presidents Roosevelt and Truman away from embracing Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau’s proposal to execute millions of Germans at the end of the war in retaliation for the Nazi atrocities. McCloy and others argued that a weakened Germany would make it too easy for the communists under Stalin to advance into Western Europe. Morgenthau had countered with a cautionary warning to General Marshall that the Germans would win World War III if they were allowed to rebuild. England’s Winston Churchill neutralized Morgenthau’s stance by stating that policy should not be based on “the vast emotions of an outraged and quivering world.”
When the Soviet Union in June of 1948 attempted to gain control of all of Berlin by cutting ground transportation into the city, disrupting business and starving the population, the Truman Administration sent daily airlifts of food and supplies into West Berlin to neutralize the Soviet effort. Soviets eventually ceased on May 12, 1949; the U.S. Berlin Airlift’s humanitarian effort continued until September.15 Even chocolate candy and chewing gum was dropped to win the hearts and sweet tooths of German children, a concept of pilot Gail Halvorsen—known as the “Candy Bomber” for the rest of his life which extended karmically to over 101 years of age when he passed in 2022.16
President Truman originally placed General Lucius Clay in charge of overseeing the initial efforts to demilitarize, decartelize, democratize, and denazificate the German nation. Truman then appointed McCloy as the first U.S. High Commissioner to Occupied West Germany. For McCloy, it was a renewal of his old ties to the nation, where he formerly was a Wall Street attorney arranging German financing before the war. McCloy served in Germany for almost three years.17
This period became one of great secrecy as some former Nazis were allowed to enter the United States because they possessed advanced scientific or weapons technology knowledge or had insights into fighting the Soviets. Millions of pages of documents from the period remained classified for over half-a-century, until Congress, led by Ohio Republican Senator Mike DeWine, demanded their release. These included 1.25 million pages from the Office of Strategic Services and later the CIA, both of which had relationships with war criminals including five assistants to Adolph Eichmann, the architect of the plan for exterminating millions of Jewish people during World War II.18
General Douglas MacArthur was given a similar assignment to McCloy’s—heading the Allied occupation of Japan after the war, at a time when concerns of a resurgent Japan were exceeded by fears of the spread of communism from Russia and China which now was on everyone’s mind19 as it had been on Pawley’s for the past decade.
On May 13, 1949, Pawley visited President Truman at the White House with J.A. Wills, an artist Pawley had commissioned to paint a portrait of Truman, and they presented the painting to the President that morning as the Administration basked in the success of the Berlin Airlift.20
While post-war attention was primarily focused on Germany and Japan, Secretary State Marshall also worried that the Rio Pact may fall apart. Near Thanksgiving, Marshall telegrammed Pawley and told him to contact Juan Atilio Bramuglia, the Foreign Minister in Argentina—who had become President of the United Nations National Security Council—to let him know that the Secretary was sorry not to have seen him before departing Paris. “Say to Bramuglia that on my return to Washington I found Vandenberg much disturbed over the fact that the Argentine Government [under Juan D. Peron] has not yet ratified the Rio Pact. Fourteen ratifications are required to make the Pact effective, thirteen have been deposited and one more is expected within a few days ... it is most important in the present state of affairs for Argentine to give evidence of support of the Pact.”
Pawley responded from Paris the next day that Bramuglia had told him the Argentine Senate voted unanimously in favor of ratification and it has been referred to the House of Representatives which will act on it in four months. “He says that Mexico’s ratification will make 14 and that Argentina will participate fully.” Jockeying went on for another week with communications being shared by Marshall, Pawley, Vandenberg, Bohlen, Jessup and Dulles (presumably John Foster, not his brother Allen).21
The following month, Pawley and the President met with representatives of the Argentine Republic at the invitation of Secretary of State Marshall. Five days later, the Argentine Foreign Minister on behalf of President Peron, “invited American capitalists to invest in Argentina.”22
A month after Truman won the election of 1948, Pawley’s old friend, Madame Chiang, tried to lobby Secretary Marshall for more U.S. support against the communists who were gaining control of China. According to Time, Madame Chiang “was the guest of Mrs. George Marshall at Leesburg, Va., and had twice gone to Walter Reed Hospital to see the Secretary of State” who had was recuperating from the surgical removal of a kidney. The Secretary was unsympathetic to her requests for more U.S. aid because the “Chinese Nationalists had surrendered 236,000 rifles, 14,000 machine guns and 26,000 tommy guns in recent battles to the Communists without a fight.” The highlight of her trip may have been riding to Blair House in “the Secretary of State’s glittering limousine (U.S. Government license 120)” in her “old nutria coat over a long black Chinese dress.”23
Time coverage was important to the Chiangs. The publication in 1937 had named Generalissimo and Madame Chiang Kai-Shek “International Man & Wife of the Year.” Over the next 18 years, the Chiangs were on the cover of Time eleven times, and Clare Boothe Luce, in 1942 described Madame Chiang as the world’s greatest living woman. The Luce publications also followed the comings and goings of Claire Chennault and Anna, the Chinese woman he wed in 1947 who would become an influential member of the China Lobby—even influencing a U.S. election two decades later. Why so much attention to China? Henry Luce’s parents had been missionaries there at the time of his birth, and in 1947 he registered the China Institute of America, as a foreign agent representing the Nationalist Chinese.24 Time and Life, two of America’s most trusted publications, had split loyalties.
On December 7, 1949, the communists under Mao Zedong won the Chinese civil war and drove millions of Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) followers to retreat to Taiwan, about 100 miles off mainland China. U.S. Representative Walter Judd (R-Minnesota) raised the specter of China soon overrunning Korea—an action that Chiang Kai-shek perceived as a wonderful opportunity for his forces to engage the enemy alongside General MacArthur’s United Nation’s troops. Judd, a former medical missionary in China, would eventually become a driving force behind the formation in 1953 of the “Committee of One Million Against the Admission of Communist China into the United Nations,”25 an effort that Pawley embraced.
The fear of communism had already led the U.S. Army to consider pursuing the use of radioactive poisons to assassinate military and civilian leaders and contaminate populated or critical areas, according to memos released six decades later. According to Associated Press, “One memo from December 1948 outlined the project and another memo that month indicated it was under way. The main sections of several subsequent progress reports in 1949 were removed by censors” before their release to the news agency despite the number of decades that had passed.
“The Dec. 16, 1948, memo said a lethal attack against individuals using radiological material should be done in a way that makes it impossible to trace the U.S. government's involvement, a concept known as ‘plausible deniability’ that is central to U.S. covert actions.” The Armed Forces Special Weapons Project run by the Army Chemical Corps was overseen by Maj. Gen. Alden H. Waitt; the Manhattan Project’s Maj. Gen. Leslie R. Groves; and his successor Maj. Gen. Kenneth D. Nichols; RAND Corp physicist Samuel T. Cohen; and Herbert Scoville, Jr.
The Defense Department appears to have stopped the radiological warfare project in favor of nuclear weapons six years later.26 Scoville went on to argue for a U.S.-Soviet Test Ban Treaty, and, at the CIA, he became “one of the original developers of the technology required for independent verification, an essential ingredient for arms control treaties.”27
On July 28, 1949, Pawley met just before lunch with President Truman. Later in the day, the President held a news conference at which one reporter asked about “reports in Paris that the Russians had exploded an experimental atomic bomb in Siberia. Has there been any official report?” The President said he knew nothing about it.28 Thirty-seven days later, the first evidence of radioactivity in Siberia was detected by an American U-2 spy plane.
In February of 1950, Truman announced the arrest of Klaus Fuchs, a scientist who helped the U.S. develop the atomic bomb and then passed the secrets to the Soviets. Fuchs was charged with violation of the Official Secrets Act and convicted quickly—in 90 minutes—on March 1, 1950. The British Security Service MI5 worked closely with the U.S. in exposing the betrayal, and Fuchs was stripped of his British Citizenship in 1951. After serving 9 years in prison, he moved to Soviet-controlled East Germany where he married and became head of the Institute for Nuclear Research in Rossendorf.29
In 1951, Pawley heard from Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett under Marshall. “For some time both General Marshall and I have felt the need of having readily available a ‘trouble-shooter’ on whom we could dump any particularly nasty problem that did not normally fall into appropriate staff channels, or to whom we could look for assistance and guidance and action on a complicated matter involving delicate negotiations. I have in mind such things as searching out and recommending remedial action on occasional industrial bottlenecks or production slowdowns, special projects possibly involving personal liaison with some of my opposite numbers in other countries, and, in general, keeping me out of trouble in certain areas where my regular staff would not normally operate. I don’t know whether this sounds attractive or not—in any event I can assure you it will be varied and certainly not dull.” In a postscript, Lovett balanced this global responsibility with recognition of a Pawley family concern. “Carter has just told me of your son Clifton’s illness. I want you to know that my thoughts are with you and if there is anything we can do please let us know.30
Pawley’s son, Clifton, died in Mexico from polio on September 26, 1951—the day that Lovett wrote his troubleshooter request. William and Edna arrived that Wednesday morning at the British American hospital in Mexico City and were at Clifton’s side when he passed.31
On December 11, 1951, The Washington Post announced that Pawley accepted and served as special assistant to Defense Secretary Robert A. Lovett as “his ‘personal trouble shooter’ to help break defense bottlenecks” in 1951 and 1952.32
By March of 1952, the writing was on the wall for Truman; his favorability in the polls had fallen to 22%, and Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver won the Democratic primary in New Hampshire. Americans had grown disillusioned with the economic slowdown; Truman’s ties to the corrupt Prendergast political machine in Missouri; his failure to stop the spread of communism against the forces of Chiang Kai-shek’s KMT; and Truman’s handling of the “police-action”—a term used because Congress did not declare war—in Korea where China and the Soviet Union loomed large in the background. Truman announced he would not seek a third term and, after the Democratic convention in the summer, threw his support to the selected candidate Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson, rather than back General Dwight D. Eisenhower whom Truman had once hoped would be the Democratic standard-bearer but now had agreed to head the Republican ticket. The “I Like Ike” campaign attracted 55% of the popular vote and nearly five times the electoral college vote than Stevenson.33
Truman’s appointment of WWII-hero General Douglas MacArthur to command American troops in South Korea, followed by relieving the popular General of his command there for defying a direct order to negotiate a ceasefire in hopes of being able to attack communist China in April 1951 may have cost Stevenson votes, too.34 Even Pawley, the close political adviser who queried Ike about running with Truman, switched from Democrat to a Republican in a painful betrayal of Truman.35
Decades later, in his autobiography, Pawley claimed that he had a conversation with President Truman half-a-year before the Korean police-action. “I urged the President, with all the persuasion I would muster, never to get involved in a land war in Asia” pointing to how half-a- million French soldiers had been mired for years in Vietnam.36 Truman paid the price for not listening to the more worldly Pawley who then raised $250,000 in contributions for Ike. President Eisenhower soon came to rely on Pawley to play invaluable roles in his first and second terms as President.37
FOOTNOTES:
1 President Harry S. Truman, Calendar: July 6, 1948 10:00 am. Harry S. Truman Library & Museum.
Off the Record—Political Meeting in the President’s Study attended by: Senator J. Howard McGrath; Mr. Joe Blythe; Honorable Oscar Ewing; Secretary of Commerce Charles Sawyer; Secretary of Agriculture Charles F. Brannan; Secretary of the Navy John L. Sullivan; Honorable Wayne Coy; Honorable Samuel I. Rosenman; Mr. Jack Redding; Secretary of the Treasury John W. Snyder; Honorable Stephen T. Early; Honorable Oscar Chapman; The Attorney General Tom C. Clark; Honorable Wm. Pawley; Honorable Leslie Biffle; Secretary of Defense James Forrestal; Secretary of the Army Kenneth C. Royall. Pawley also met privately with the president on July 28, 1948, 3:45 pm. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/calendar/index.html
2 “Memorandum on William Douglas Pawley Letterhead, Belvoir Farm, The Plains, Virginia. July 6, 1948.” To: The Secretary of State. From William Douglas Pawley. Subject: Visit to the United States of the President-elect of Cuba.
In the 1960s, Francisco G. Cajigas, a wealthy Cuban businessman who fled after Castro took power, described Burt Hedges as an unscrupulous businessman whose financial contributions to the Cuban exile FRD were designed to buy him power in Cuba after the exiles ousted Castro.
3 Truman Diaries, July 25, 1947.
Stephen Ambrose’s Eisenhower as reported in The Washington Post, 2003.
4 “Oral History Interview with Oscar L. Chapman by Jerry Hess, August 18, 1972.” Harry S. Truman Library &
Museum.
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/chapman.htm
Campaign strategists included Attorney General Tom Clark; Secretary of Commerce Charles Sawyer; Clark Clifford; Oscar Ewing, the head of the Federal Security Agency; Oscar Chapman, Under Secretary of the Interior; Leslie Biffle; Senator Carl Hatch; Stephen Early; Judge Samuel I. Rosenman; and Matthew J. Connelly.
5 “The Angels of the Truman Campaign,” Time, June 6, 1949.
6 NARA 104-10119-10317 ~ 8/30/1971 CIA “Profile of Everette Howard Hunt Jr.” From: PES. To: AC/CB.
>> From May 1948 until February 1949, Hunt was at ECA. The CIA’s background check noted that prior to joining the ECA and CIA, he had been a writer for publisher Henry Luce’s Time Incorporated and then member of the Office of Strategic Services in the Far East.
Howard Hunt, Give Us This Day (Arlington House, New Rochelle, NY 1973). Page 28.
7 September 7, 1948. Letter re William Pauley (misspelled throughout the document). From: Horton R. Telford, Legal Attache, Paris, France. To: FBI Director Hoover.
Mr. Pawley spoke very freely and frankly regarding his experiences in South America, and particularly against ex-Ambassador Spruille Braden, whom he particularly dislikes.
Pawley claims that Braden was given his first government post by President Roosevelt through the pressure of the CIO, and that he was completely under their control. The CIO plan was that he should start out as an ambassador, then assistant Secretary of State, and finally Secretary of State. Pawley takes credit for finally “breaking” Braden.
Mr. Pawley discussed Gustavo Duran at some length and...alleged that Duran was forced onto Braden by the CIO and that while in Cuba he, Duran, organized and controlled the Cuban Communist Party. Braden, whom Pawley considers a Communist sympathizer, while ambassador and assistant secretary concentrated on non-existant (sic) and imaginery (sic) “Nazis” in order to divert attention from the greatest menace, the Communists. According to him [Pawley], when the FBI cleaned up the Nazi situation and directed its attention more to our real enemies, the Communists, Braden became alarmed and it was actually he who forced the Bureau to withdraw from the foreign field.
Pawley intimated that he himself conducted a personal investigation of Duran the results of which he made known to Secretary Marshall, the President and Attorney General Clark.
Mr. Pawley said he was 100 per cent for the Bureau and fought to the end against their withdrawal from South America, having made special trips to Washington to defend the Bureau. On one occasion he told President Truman that withdrawing the FBI from SIS was a greater disaster to our country than Pearl Harbor, and he still thinks so.
Pawley was most enthusiastic in his praise of the Director and the FBI. [REDACTED]
The Pawleys are now on vacation and will still visit several other European countries before returning to the States in October.
>> During the course of the above conversation, the writer [Telford] took no part in the discussion nor made any comments.
8 “Executive session testimony of William D. Pawley September 2 and 8, 1960.” Committee of the Judiciary’s Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and other Internal Security Laws, Report December 20, 1960. Pages 712 and 755.
9 “Hoover Planned Mass Jailing in 1950.” By Tim Weiner. The New York Times, December 23, 2007.
10 10/19/1948 Correspondence. From: William Pawley. To: Secretary of State Marshall. Marshall Library, Pawley Papers, Box #1, folders 1-5.
I saw the President at the White House on Saturday afternoon and again here in Miami yesterday where he addressed the American Legion. I explained to him that I was returning to Paris Sunday in order that my services would be at your disposal for the duration of the Conference. The President, on both occasions, requested that I not leave before the election. I told the President that I had already personally advanced $15,000 toward the campaign and that I had very little opportunity to do anything further and therefore would like to keep the schedule as planned.
As you know, Mr. Secretary, I am not a candidate for any post, nor am I seeking any favors, but I do have a very deep personal regard and friendship for President Truman and under no circumstance do I want him to think that I am neglecting his interest, which is certainly not the case.
... Bob [Lovett] suggested that in view of the President’s feeling I postpone my departure until the flight of Sunday, October thirty-first. I explained to Bob that this late date might not meet with your approval; however I want you to know that either of the dates above referred to are satisfactory with me and I shall await word from Mr. Lovett as to your views.”
11 10/28/1948 Correspondence. From: Carlisle Humelsine. To: William Pawley. Marshall Library, Pawley Papers, Box #1, folders 1-5.
12 “U.S. Diplomats Abroad Deplore Private Envoys: Unofficial Representatives Have Confused Foreign Governments and Our Staffs.” By C. L. Sulzberger. The New York Times, November 8, 1948. Page 12.
13 Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War Volume II, The Roar of the Cataract: 1947-1950 (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1990). Pages 509-11.
Anthony R. Carrozza, William D. Pawley: The Extraordinary Life of the Adventurer, and Diplomat Who Cofounded the Flying Tigers. Page 70.
14 Jack Samson, The Flying Tiger: The True Story of General Claire Chennault and the U.S. 14th Air Force in China (Guilford, Connecticut: The Lyons Press paperback, 2005). Page 254.
15 “The Berlin Airlift.” Harry S. Truman Library & Museum. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/berlin_airlift/large/docs.php.
16 “Gail Halvorsen, ‘Candy Bomber’ in Berlin Airlift, dies at 101.” By Ricard Goldstein. The New York Times, Updated February 19, 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/17/us/gail-halvorsen-obituary.html
17 Michael Beschloss, The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler’s Germany 1941-1945 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002). Pages 60, 144, 180, and 271-73.
“John J. McCloy, Lawyer and Diplomat, Is Dead at 93,” The New York Times, March 12, 1989.
18 Malia Rulon, “CIA to Release Nazi Documents,” The Herald (Bradenton), February 7, 2005.
19 “Robert A. Fearey, 85; Foreign Service Officer,” The Washington Post, March 6, 2004, page B07. >> The obituary stated that as an analyst in the State Department Robert Fearey developed plans for the occupation of Japan, and his paper on postwar agrarian land reform there was adopted by General MacArthur.
MacArthur dismissal, CNN Specials. http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/kbank/profiles/Macarthur
20 President Harry S. Truman, Calendar: May 13, 1949, 8:30 am. Harry S. Truman Library & Museum. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/calendar/index.html
21 November 24, 1948 – Telegram to the United States Mission to the United Nations, American Embassy Paris. Additional telegrams dated November 25 and November 30. Marshall Library, Pawley Papers, Box #1, folders 1-5.
22 President Harry S. Truman, Calendar: December 10, 1948, 11:15 am. Harry S. Truman Library & Museum. http://www.trumanlibrary.org
“Bramuglia Invites U.S. Investments: Argentina’s Foreign Minister Says That His Government Would Guarantee Stability.” The New York Times, December 15, 1948. Page 2.
23 “House Guest,” Time, December 13, 1948.
“Mme. Chiang Sees Marshall 4 Hours; Wife of Generalissimo Says She Is ‘Encouraged’ by Talk but Divulges No Details.” The New York Times. December 4, 1948. Page 5.
Pawley, Russia Is Winning, page 275.
>> 1947 could be a mistaken reference; 1948 seems more likely.
24 “Man and Wife of the Year.” Time, 1937. http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2019712_2019710_2019671,00.html Time archive, http://www.time.com
The Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company (CAMCO) was run by Edward D. Pawley, who was later described by Life magazine as "always able to be at the right place a few minutes before the right time." The contracts made no mention of the true nature of the service, stating that the signatories were hired to "manufacture, repair and operate aircraft."
http://m2reviews.cnsi.net/reviews/allies/us/cleaverp40b.htm “Talk & Ceremony,” Time, June 11, 1945.
“Madame Chiang Kai-shek Dies; Chinese Chief’s Powerful Widow.” By Bart Barnes. The Washington Post, October 25, 2003. Page B06.
“Fortune’s Wheel,” Time, January 28, 1946.
25 Barbara Stuhler, Ten Men of Minnesota and American Foreign Policy, 1898-1968 (St. Paul, Minnesota Historical Society, 1973). Page 185.
When Chiang Kai-shek offered his Nationalist Chinese forces to do battle in Korea, he was rebuffed by the U.S. officials who felt it would provoke the Peoples Republic of China to side with the Soviets and North Koreans.
26 Robert Burns, “U.S. Considered Poisons for Assassinations,” The Associated Press, October 9, 2007.
Pawley, Russia Is Winning, page 277.
27 “Biography of Herbert Scoville, Jr. (1915-1985).” Council for a Livable World website. http://www.clw.org/scoville/scovbio.html
28 President Harry S. Truman, Calendar: July 28, 1949, 12:20 p.m. Harry S. Truman Library & Museum. Public Papers, Harry S. Truman Library & Museum. http://trumanlibrary.org/publicpapers/viewpapers.php?pid=1184
29“Klaus Fuchs,” History, Security Service MI5
U.S. and British intelligence agencies worked together on the Venoma project to break Soviet code system. Their success helped translate communications Fuchs during his passing of the atomic secrets. https://www.mi5.gov.uk/klaus-fuchs#:~:text=Introduction%20to%20Klaus%20Fuchs, teaching%20post% 20at%20the%20university.
30 9/26/1951 Letter. From: Robert Lovett on The Secretary of Defense letterhead. To: William Pawley at “Belvoir House, The Plains, Virginia. Marshall Library, Pawley Papers, Box #1, folders 1-5.
31 “Clifton Pawley Dead; Son of Ex-Envoy to Brazil a Victim of Polio in Mexico.” The New York Times, September 27, 1951. Page 31.
“Executive session testimony of William D. Pawley, September 2 and 8, 1960.” Committee of the Judiciary’s Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and other Internal Security Laws, Report (December 20, 1960). Pages 712, 755.
32 “W. Pawley to Aid Lovett on Defense.” The Washington Post, December 11, 1951. Page 4.
33 Truman Diaries, July 25, 1947.
“Truman declines to seek another term, March 29, 1952,” By Andrew Glass, This Day in Politics, Politico https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/29/truman-declines-to-seek-another-term-march-29-1952-1238358
“Stephen Ambrose’s Eisenhower.” The Washington Post, 2003.
34 “The Firing of MacArthur, National Archives, Truman Library Museum
https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/education/presidential-inquiries/firing-macarthur
“Robert A. Fearey, 85; Foreign Service Officer.” Washington Post, March 6, 2004. Page B07. MacArthur dismissal. http://www.cnn.com/SpecialS/cold.war/kbank/profiles/Macarthur.
35 Anthony R. Carrozza, William D. Pawley: The Extraordinary Life of the Adventurer, and Diplomat Who Cofounded the Flying Tigers. Page 734.
36 Pawley, Russia Is Winning, Chapter 23. Conversation with Truman December 17, 1949
37 Murray Illson, “A Lone and Varied Career.” The New York Times. January 8, 1977. Page 22.
Labels: Chiang, CIA, Dewey, Eisenhower, Howard Hunt, Ike, Luce, McCloy, OSS, Pawley, Prio, Truman
posted by David Price Cannon @ 2:55 PM
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