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Contact Info
Home Town Washington, DC
Last Address Honesdale, PA
Date of Passing Nov 12, 1988
Location of Interment Arlington National Cemetery (VLM) - Arlington, Virginia
Lyman Louis Lemnitzer (August 29, 1899 – November 12, 1988) was an American Army General, who served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1960 to 1962. He then served Supreme Allied Commander, NATO from 1963 to 1969.
Biography
Lemnitzer was born on August 29, 1899 in Honesdale, Pennsylvania. He graduated from West Point in 1920 and was assigned at his request to a Coast Artillery unit. Lemnitzer served in the Philippines but soon began receiving the staff assignments that marked his military career.
Lemnitzer was promoted to Brigadier General in June 1942 and assigned to General Eisenhower's staff shortly thereafter. He helped form the plans for the invasions of North Africa and Sicily and was promoted to Major General in November 1944. Lemnitzer was one of the senior officers sent to negotiate the Italian surrender during the secret Operation Sunrise and the German surrender in 1945. He would later be accused of making it possible for some Nazis to elude investigations for war crimes.
Following the end of World War II, Lemnitzer was assigned to the Strategic Survey Committee of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and was later named Deputy Commandant of the National War College. In 1950, at the age of 51, he took parachute training and was subsequently placed in command of the 11th Airborne Division. He was assigned to Korea in command of the 7th Infantry Division in November 1951 and was promoted to Lieutenant General in August 1952.
Lemnitzer was promoted to the rank of General and named Commander of U.S. Army Forces in the Far East and of the 8th Army in March 1955. He was named Chief of Staff of the Army in July 1957 and appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in September 1960. As Chairman, Lemnitzer weathered the Bay of Pigs crisis and the early years of American involvement in Vietnam. He was also required to testify before the United States Senate Foreign Affairs Committee about his knowledge of the activities of Major General Edwin Walker, an extreme racist who had been dismissed from the Army over alleged attempts to promote his beliefs in the military.
Lemnitzer approved the plans known as Operation Northwoods in 1962, a proposed plan to discredit the Castro regime and create support for military action against Cuba by staging false flag and "develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington". Lemnitzer presented the plans to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13, 1962. It is unclear how McNamara reacted, but three days later President Kennedy told the general that there was no chance that America would take military action against Cuba. Within a few months, after the denial of Operation Northwoods, Lemnitzer was denied another term as JCS chairman.
In November 1962, Lemnitzer was appointed as Commander of U.S. Forces in Europe, and as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO (the US European Command is the crown jewel of regional commands) in January 1963. This period encompassed the Cyprus crisis of 1963-1964 and the withdrawal of NATO forces from France in 1966.
Other Comments:
Lemnitzer had a passionate hatred for Communists and the "liberal" politicians that he felt were in office during the presidency of John F. Kennedy. He was a strong proponent of staging a full-scale military invasion of Cuba, and then keeping all of its inhabitants under a state of martial law until they began to accept U.S. doctrine. When his suggestions were repeatedly denied in favor of more covert CIA programs based around espionage and propaganda, he began making proposals to attack U.S. citizens and servicemen, and blame it on Cuba, in order to garner public support for a military invasion. One such proposal, known as Operation Northwoods, involved such ideas as firing mortar rounds into U.S. military bases, switching a real plane for a remote controlled plane and blowing it up remotely - blaming it on Cuba, or sinking a U.S. naval vessel stationed near Cuba. The sinking of a vessel has been interpreted as involving real casualties but another interpretation is that the vessel should be unmanned. This latter interpretation is supported by a closer reading of the declassified Northwood Joint Chiefs of Staff report which mentions mock victims and the use of drones. Ultimately most of his plans were rejected by the Kennedy Administration.
Lemnitzer retired from the military in July 1969. In 1975, President Ford appointed Lemnitzer to the Commission on CIA Activities within the United States (aka the Rockefeller Commission) to investigate whether the Central Intelligence Agency had committed acts that violated American laws and allegations that E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis (of Watergate fame) were involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Lemnitzer died on November 12, 1988 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. His wife, Katherine Tryon Lemnitzer (1901-1994), is buried with him.
Lemnitzer was played by John Seitz in the 1991 Oliver Stone film, 'JFK.
Foreign decorations
Honorary Companion of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath (Great Britian)
Honorary Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (Great Britian)
Knight of the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic (Italy)
Grand Cross of the Order of the Crown (Italy)
Military Order of Merit (Italy)
Officer of the Légion d'honneur (France)
Médaille militaire (France)
Croix de guerre with Palm (France)
Bundeswehr Cross of Honour in Gold (Germany)
Grand Officer of the Order of Boyaca (Columbia)
Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun (Japan)
Medalha de Guerra (Brazil)
Grand Official of the Order of Military Merit (Brazil)
Order of Military Merit Teaguk (Korea)
Order of Military Merit Teaguk with Gold Star (Korea)
Gold Cross of Merit with Swords (Poland)
Most Exalted Order of the White Elephant (Thailand)
Medal for Military Merit, First Class (Czechoslovakia)
Royal Order of the White Eagle, Class II (Yugoslavia)
On 23 June 1951 Jacob Malik, Deputy Foreign Minister of the U.S.S.R., made a statement in a recorded broadcast in New York implying Chinese and North Korean willingness to discuss armistice terms to end the Korean War. When Communist China indicated that it also desired peace, President Truman authorized General Ridgway to arrange for an armistice conference with the North Korean commander. Both aides agreed to begin negotiations at Kaesong on 10 July 1951. The chief delegate for the U.N. at the conference was Vice Admiral C. Turner Joy. The enemy delegation was led by Lt. Gen. Nam Il.
It was agreed at the first meeting that military operations would continue until an armistice agreement was signed. However, neither aide was willing to start any large-scale offensive while peace talks were in progress. U.N. military action in this period was limited to combat patrolling, artillery and air bombardment, and the repulsing of enemy attacks.
In August of 1951 the strength of all U.N. ground forces under Eighth Army command totaled 549,224. This included 248,320 U.S. ground troops, Army and Marines, 268,320 in the ROK Army, and 32,874 in the ground units of the seventeen other United Nations.
Truce negotiations were broken off by the Communists on 22 August. Van Fleet then launched a series of limited-objective attacks to improve the Eighth Army's defensive positions. The U.S. X and ROK I Corps in east-central Korea fought for terrain objectives five to seven miles above Line KANSAS, among them Bloody and Heartbreak Ridges, to drive enemy forces from positions that favored an attack on Line KANSAS. By the last week in October these objectives had been secured.
Along the western portion of the front, action in September was characterized by local attacks, counterattacks, and combat patrols. By 12 October five divisions of the I Corps had advanced the front three to four miles to a new Line JAMESTOWN to protect the Ch'orwon-Seoul railroad. The IX Corps followed with aggressive patrolling toward Kumsong. On 21 October it seized the commanding heights just south of the city.
On 25 October armistice negotiations were resumed at the new site of Panmunjom.
