UNDERSTANDING SPECIAL OPERATIONS (Ratcliffe 1999), CHAPTER 1

I came on duty before the beginning of WWII, an ROTC cavalry unit

Active duty with the 4th Armored Division July 10th 1941

I reported to Creighton W. Abrams from my own home town

I began flight training in Maxwell Field in Alabama about May of 1942

In February of 1943 I was in Africa with the Air Transport Command

We flew General Smith into Saudi Arabia to meet representatives of Standard Oil

That's the first clandestine exercise I was ever involved in

We established an operating base during the Cairo Conference

In Teheran, Churchill had no ID, the Russians weren't going to let him through

Success at Teheran enabled Chiang Kai-shek to put more pressure on the Japanese

American generals supported Ho Chi Minh against the Japanese

A few miles below the Turkish Syrian border, 750 American former prisoners of war

I realized that some of my passengers were Nazi intelligence officers

This group did contain men who had been selected by Frank Wisner of the OSS

I never saw devastation equal to what I saw in the Soviet Union

January of '45 I began flying the Pacific, four-engine transport work

The atom bomb had been used, this was mid-August, the Japanese had quit

We flew up to Tokyo on September 1st, 1945

At Atsugi air base, here were our enemies, they came over and helped us

Equipment for 500,000 men going to Hanoi in Indochina

Hiroshima, I flew very low over the area and had a good look at it

The decision had been made to establish an Air Force ROTC

I taught a very interesting course called "The Evolution of Warfare"

I visited Werner Von Braun to write about rockets and missiles

The Korean War broke out in June of 1950

I was one of five officers selected to initiate a new Air Defense Command

A difficult period, because of the enormous devastation power of the atom bomb

Spring of '52, I was the Military Manager of Tokyo International Airport

Out of Tokyo we ran a regularly scheduled Embassy Run

Civil Air Transport, were delivering supplies to the French, fighting Ho Chi Minh

I met Colonel Lansdale and his organization in Vietnam

I was selected to attend the Armed Forces Staff College, in Norfolk, Virginia

One of the courses was a hypothetical NATO confrontation through Europe

It just shocked the whole group, the impact of what nuclear weapons could do

The hydrogen bomb would wipe out any city, you cannot fight war with that

I went to the Pentagon from that schoo, to the Air Force Plans Office, in July of 1955

General Thomas White told me NSC had published Directive Directive 5412, in 1954

The Department of Defense would provide support for clandestine operations

"Military Support of the Clandestine Operations of the United States Government"

I was the "Chief of Team B," in charge of clandestine operations, for the Air Force

The Economy Act of 1932 became the heart of the covert program

We created literally hundreds of false military organizations

The 1234 Logistics Squadron really belongs to CIA

This clandestine system we established, we called "Tab-6"

Mr. Dulles sent me around the world to many of his stations

In Athens there was a camp for people we call, "mechanics" (hit men, gunmen)

Thousands of ex-Nazis were being brought to the US for their various skills

We could paratroop people in following a massive nuclear attack

"Special Forces" were created for that post-strike purpose

Hitler's chief of intelligence, Reinhardt Gehlen, became a U.S. Army general

European command began looking on CIA as a "Fou...