10: Defense Department Troubleshooting

While sensitive talks were going on in India, a background check on William Douglas Pawley (EE-7144-A) was requested on October 3, 1951 which circulated for months before he could serve as special assistant to Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett who had replaced George C Marshall the month before. Those queried included the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Office of Naval Intelligence, State Department, Central Intelligence Agency, House Committee on Un-American Activities, CSC (possibly Civil Service Commission), OSI (Office of Scientific Intelligence), and ASCI (U.S. Army’s Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence).1

On January 24, 1952, one of the security checks “by the Bureau of Internal Revenue in 1944-45” revealed some derogatory information from Pawley’s days in India building planes for China. Multiple people described Pawley “as a ‘shady, slick, business operator’. Subject was considered by several representatives of the British-Indian Government and the U.S. Consulate, Madras, India, as having a questionable reputation and was also considered dishonest by some of his previous associates.” Significant among them: “General Chennault who was one of the individuals contacted during investigation stated that he regarded Subject’s record in India and China as questionable and stated that Subject was ‘involved in attempted bribery’.”

Pawley however was not considered “disloyal by any of the persons contacted” so the State Department name check “was returned with a notation that the subject’s investigative file could not be made available for review. In the absence of any derogatory information as to Subject’s loyalty, and in view of Subject’s prominence in the United States, it is felt that he should be placed in the Approved/Caution category.”2

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44: Life and Death

On October 4, 1977, Bob Woodward, the Watergate reporter from The Washington Post spoke in New Jersey at Montclair State College (now a University) and bet the audience that no one could name all of the infamous Watergate burglars just five years after the crime. I won his $20 bet because my interest in JMWAVE and the anti-Castro Cubans associated with E. Howard Hunt, Frank Sturgis and William Pawley had been rising not waning during the investigations by the Rockefeller Commission, the Church Committee, the Pike Committee and the House Select Committee on Assassinations, between 1975 and 1978.

Those probes also were creating an intriguing cluster of dead fellows within the JMWAVE-AMSPELL-TILT milieu.1 Some were heart attacks, perhaps brought on by the stress of revelations of dark secrets. Some suicides. Some murders by shooting and car bombing.

On the morning of January 7, 1977, hours before Pawley took his own life, Juan Jose Peruyero “was shot twice in the back” as he left his home in Miami’s Little Havana “shortly after at 8 a.m.” Before he died at “Jackson Memorial Hospital,” Peruyero said he knew who fired the shots, but the assailant in the passing “1967 Cadillac” was never prosecuted, and it has remained a cold case for decades. He “was the seventh exile leader to die in the last three years.”2

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54: 2023 Flying Tiger Spirit

2023/10/30 - "'Flying Tiger'" spirit expected to be passed on: Chinese VP." Source: Xinhua Editor: huaxia

As relationships between the U.S. and China frayed, and fears of a communist takeover of Taiwan grew, the government in Beijing conducted a propaganda event to try to repair its image by demonstrating the long bond between the two countries that existed eight decades ago when they defended the nation against Japanese aggression. 

"Chinese Vice President Han Zheng" met "with a delegation of Flying Tigers veterans in Beijing. Noting President Xi Jinping recently replied to a letter from the chairman of the Sino-American Aviation Heritage Foundation and Flying Tigers veterans Han said the Chinese people would always remember the heroic deeds of the Flying Tigers and never forget the old friends." Han expressed "hope that the spirit of the Flying Tigers would be passed on from generation to generation. Jeffrey Greene chairman of the Sino-American Aviation Heritage Foundation and Flying Tigers veterans Harry Moyer and Mel McMullen among others said it was a great honor to receive the reply letter from President Xi adding they will be committed to carrying forward the spirit of the Flying Tigers and enhancing the friendship between the American and Chinese people." 

Daniel Ford, the foremost authority on the Flying Tigers, was appalled, noting in his 11/1/2023 Newsletter of the WarBirdForum.com that Chennault and his men in the American Volunteer Group opposed the communist Chinese when they flew in support of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists whom Pawley consistently supported long after the Nationalists left the mainland for Taiwan.