Brown, Ronald Harmon, CPT

Deceased
 
 Photo In Uniform   Service Details
7 kb
View Shadow Box View Printable Shadow Box View Time Line
Last Rank
Captain
Last Service Branch
Armor
Last Primary MOS
1203-Tank Unit Commander
Last MOS Group
Armor
Primary Unit
1966-1967, 7th Infantry Division
Service Years
1962 - 1967
Official/Unofficial US Army Certificates
Cold War Certificate
Armor
Captain

 Last Photo   Personal Details 

26 kb


Home State
District Of Columbia 		Year of Birth
1941
 
This Deceased Army Profile is not currently maintained by any Member. If you would like to take responsibility for researching and maintaining this Deceased profile please click HERE
 
Contact Info
Home Town
Washington, DC		 Last Address
Washington, DC
Date of Passing
Apr 03, 1996		  
Location of Interment
Arlington National Cemetery (VLM) - Arlington, Virginia

 Official Badges 

Army Honorable Discharge (1984-Present)


 Unofficial Badges 

Armor Shoulder Cord Cold War Medal Cold War Veteran


 Military Associations and Other Affiliations
National Cemetery Administration (NCA)
  1996, National Cemetery Administration (NCA)


 Additional Information
Last Known Activity:

Ronald Harmon "Ron" Brown (August 1, 1941 – April 3, 1996) was the United States Secretary of Commerce, serving during the first term of President Bill Clinton. He was the first African American to hold this position. He was killed, along with 34 others, in a 1996 plane crash in Croatia.


Early life and political career


He was born in Washington, D.C., and was raised in Harlem, New York, in a middle-class family. He was a member of the African-American social and philanthropic organization, Jack and Jill of America, where he met many African-American friends. Brown attended Hunter College Elementary School and Rhodes Preparatory School. His father managed the Theresa Hotel in Harlem, where Ron lived growing up. His best friend John R. Nailor moved into the penthouse while a student at Rhodes. Nailor was one of the other few black students who attended Rhodes Prep. As a child, he appeared in an advertisement for Pepsi-Cola, one of the first to be targeted specifically towards the African-American community.


While at Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont, Ron Brown became the first African-American member of Sigma Phi Epsilon, a national men's collegiate fraternity. Brown joined the army in 1962, after graduating from Middlebury, and served in South Korea and Europe, the same year he married Alma Arrington. After being discharged in 1967, Brown joined the National Urban League, a leading economic equality group in the United States. Meanwhile, Brown enrolled in law school at St. John's University and obtained a degree in 1970.


Rising star in the Democratic Party


By 1976, Brown had been promoted to Deputy Executive Director for Programs and Governmental Affairs of the National Urban League. However, he resigned in 1979 to work as a deputy campaign manager for Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who sought the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.

Brown was hired in 1981 by the Washington, D.C., law firm Patton, Boggs & Blow as a lawyer and a lobbyist.


In May 1988, Brown was named by Jesse L. Jackson to head Jackson's convention team at the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta. Brown was named along with several other experienced party insiders to Jackson's convention operation. By June, it was apparent that Brown was also running Jackson's campaign.


Brown was elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee on February 10, 1989, and played an integral role in running a successful 1992 Democratic National Convention and in Bill Clinton's successful 1992 presidential run. President Clinton then appointed Brown to the position of Secretary of Commerce in 1993.


Death


On April 3, 1996, when Brown was 54 and on an official trade mission, the Air Force CT-43 (a modified Boeing 737) carrying Brown and 34 other people, including New York Times Frankfurt Bureau chief Nathaniel C. Nash, crashed in Croatia. While attempting an instrument approach to Čilipi airport, the airplane crashed into a mountainside. Everyone aboard was killed instantly except Air Force Tech. Sgt. Shelley Kelly, a flight attendant, who died while being transported to a hospital. The final Air Force investigation attributed the crash to pilot error and a poorly designed landing approach. Speculations as to the circumstances surrounding the plane crash that caused Brown's death include many government cover-up and conspiracy theories, largely based on Brown having been under investigation by independent counsel for corruption. Of specific concern was a trip Brown had made to Viet Nam on behalf of the Clinton Administration. Brown carried an offer for normalizing relations between the U.S. and the former communist enemy. When details of the meetings and subsequent offer were leaked to the press President Clinton denied it. Brown was scheduled to testify before a House committee but died in a plane crash prior to when he was to appear.

Honors and Legacy


On January 8, 2001, Brown was presented, posthumously, with the Presidential Citizens Medal by President Bill Clinton. The award was accepted by Brown's widow, Alma Brown. President Clinton also established the Ron Brown Award for corporate leadership and responsibility. The Conference Board administers the privately funded award. The U.S. Department of Commerce also gives out the annual Ronald H. Brown American Innovator Award in his honor. The California Black Chamber of Commerce, every August, holds the Ron Brown Business Economic Summit.


Many academic scholarships and programs have been established to honor Brown. St. John's University School of Law established the The Ronald H. Brown Center for Civil Rights and Economic Development in memorial. The Ronald H. Brown fellowship is awarded annually to many students at Middlebury College to pursue research internships in science and technology, and the Ron Brown Scholar Program was established in Brown's honor in 1996 to provide academic scholarships, service opportunities and leadership experiences for young African Americans of outstanding promise.


The largest ship in the NOAA fleet, the NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown, was named in honor of his public service not long after his death.


In March, 2011 the new United States Mission to the United Nations building in New York City was named in Brown's honor and dedicated at a ceremony in which President Obama, former President Clinton and the United States representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Susan Rice, spoke.


His son Michael Brown was elected to the Council of the District of Columbia in 2008.
   
 Photo Album   (More...) 



Operation Jilli (North Korea)
From Month/Year
January / 1964		 To Month/Year
October / 1968

Description
One of the “dirty little secrets” of the Cold War was that from the years 1964 to 1968 the United States Air Force dropped leaflets over the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in an attempt to influence the citizens and ruling class of that Communist nation. Information on this operation first became available when the 7th Psychological Group confidential document A Report on Operation Jilli was declassified in 1979. The vast majority of facts that you will read in this article came directly from the Jilli Report. The manual notes that past leafleting operations have been very inefficient. In the case of Jilli:

    …This is Operation Jilli. Using giant cargo planes to drop at high altitude and into favorable winds, millions of leaflets all along the demilitarized zone into North Korea…Light military aircraft, balloons, and covert means supplement large scale leaflet delivery by targeting their drops for military and other special targets…Also, a program is underway to deliver information by inexpensive water floats, using the Korean rivers, tides and ocean currents….

In 1964, the 7th Psychological Operations Group (Korea detachment) was given the task of disseminating western news and propaganda into North Korea. The program was called “Operation Jilli.” “Jilli” is a Korean word meaning “truth.” Previously, the American code for dropping leaflets in Korea had been “Litterbug.” The Commander-in-Chief, United Nations Command was General Hamilton H. Howze. He hated the name and said, “Have the Koreans rename it.” The American Operations Officer (J-3) asked a Korean aide in the office the Korean word for truth. The response was “Jilli.” Thus, the fledgling operation was named. Several years later, it was renamed in Hawaii as a part of a program to rename various Pacific Theater operations. It was then called “Focus Truth.”
The plan called for American aircraft to fly along the southern edge of the demilitarized zone or well out over the open sea and drop millions of leaflets that would be carried by wind currents over North Korea. The content of the program was initially designed to present the Republic of Korea in a favorable light through information concerning economic, social and political progress and prosperity. The program of high-altitude drops was supplemented by light military aircraft, balloons, and other covert means of placing leaflets inside North Korea. Major Rodrick Renick, the Commanding Officer of the 7th PSYOP Group Korea Detachment is credited with developing the Operation Jilli working in partnership with Lieutenant Colonel David Underhill.
The United Nations had branded North Korea the aggressor because of their unprovoked attack on the South in 1950. The Communists wished to justify their actions to both the world and their own citizens. In South Korea the people could read the newspapers and see the results of the rebuilding of their country. In North Korea, the people saw only what their government allowed. They were told on a daily basis that the South had started the Korean War, that the South blocked reunification, and that their brothers in the south were starving and being plundered by Americans and other imperialists.

A 1966 United States Information Agency research report entitled North Korean Propaganda: Themes and Tactics notes:

    Five major propaganda campaigns were identified which dealt individually with the following topics:

        1. The rewards of the Communist form of government.

        2. Reunification of North and South Korea.

        3.The alleged incompetency and criminal activities of South Korean President Park Chung-hee.

        4. U. S. "imperialistic" meddling in Korea’s affairs.

        5. Japan's Aggressive designs in Korea and East Asia.

A 1968 7th PSYOP Group report entitled North Korean Propaganda adds:

    North Korean propaganda is devoted to the principle that one hundred repetitions is a good beginning. To the Westerner, North Korean propaganda sounds boring, repetitive, totally immersed in broad irresponsible generalizations, and replete with many falsehoods.

    North Korea prints leaflets which it infiltrates into the Republic of Korea by balloon. It also tries to infiltrate propaganda in the Republic of Korea through the use of Japanese, American and other magazines. The propaganda is inserted into these magazines and sent into South Korea through the mails.

David G. Underhill enlisted in the United States Air Force in 1951. He volunteered for Korea and was assigned to the 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing Headquarters. He later enlisted in the United States Army and was deployed to Japan in the Office of the Commander-in-Chief, United Nations and Far East Command. He was recommended for OCS and studied Korean at the Army Language School, now called the Defense Language Institute. During the Vietnam War he served as a U.S. Army officer in the 7th Psychological Operations Group in Okinawa, rising to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He was PSYOP liaison to the 1st Special Forces and trained and jumped with them in Okinawa and Korea. Prior to 1964 he was sent to Vietnam to access the needs of PSYOP units. He recommended a Battalion and four companies. He was awarded Legion of Merit awards in 1967 and 1973. In 1968 he was awarded a Bronze Star for his service while serving as Psychological Warfare Officer, Development Branch, Psychological Operations Directorate, United States Military Assistance Command-Vietnam. He wrote the “Bible” of leafleting, The Low, Medium, and High Altitude Leaflet Dissemination Guide.
   
My Participation in This Battle or Operation
From Month/Year
January / 1965		 To Month/Year
December / 1965
 
Last Updated:
Mar 16, 2020
   
Personal Memories
   
My Photos From This Battle or Operation
No Available Photos

  1 Also There at This Battle:
 
  • Young, Martial, SGT, (1964-1967)
Copyright Togetherweserved.com Inc 2003-2011