AMERICAN MILITARISM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000100040061-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 10, 2000
• Sequence Number: 61
• Publication Date: April 12, 1969
• Content Type: NSPR

i 1oup, former omman an o Mc nI a CIA officials were rv iintilc`Wefcnse Dn art
States Marine Corps, has set forth his views on "The New American, g P
in both military and civilian roles. General Taylor
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is statement, some-. over as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Le
what reminiscent of the warning sounded by President Eisenhower
against the power of the Military-Industry, Combine and coming as
it does at the peak of the ABM debates,. has stirred up considerable
comment. Shoup's message is that "the cult of the gun" is ready to
lead us into war whenever and wherever the cultists "suspect Com-
munist aggression." The obvious index of the military's ballooning
influence is, of course, the Defense budget itself - $45.5 billion in
1g6o, when General Shoup became Marine. Corps Commandant;
over $Sz billion ten years later. But the momentous meaning of
Shoup's essay lies elsewhere, in what he does not say, in what he did
not know how to say, in what he seems not to have observed.
General Shoup, who retired in December 1963 as a member of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, never made the New Team that has been riding
high this decade. With his Congressional Medal of Honor and his
quiet dignity he was one of the old school.:. Like the other Chiefs of
Staff of his time - Lemnitzer, White, Burke and Decker-.he was
attle-trained, competent, old-line. His .and their era came to an
end with the change of Administration in 1961, and specifically with
the abortive invasion of Cuba. Shoup was. a member of the joint
Chiefs of Staff at the time of the Bay of Pigs, as was General Lem-
nitzer, but they never participated in its planning. The invasion cast
the peacetime military forces in a role for which they were unpre-
pared. When it misfired, some believed, or hoped, that CIA-directed
paramilitary operations would be shelved, that a lesson had been
learned and firm restraints placed on the gung-ho enthusiasts for
counter-insurgency. They were wrong. In the wake of the disaster,
President Kennedy appointed a review board (Allen Dulles, Admiral
Burke, Robert Kennedy, and Maxwell Taylor). General Taylor, who
had left the Army to vent his displeasure with things as they were
and to write The Uncertain Trumpet, here found an outlet for his
energies. When the Bay of Pigs hearings were concluded, President the military. I
. Kennedy made Taylor his Special Assistant and Adviser for Military CIA, as used in this connection, is the operati
matters. Both the young President and the ambitious general denied organization, not the intelligence structure, and~ '.that thin assignment would infringe upon the authority of the Chair-operational organization was and is well-pl l
forces began to be formed. 'chief of staff, first served with CIA as a deputy
Cavalry Mobile Divisions at Fort Benning, the new 'tivities. Lt. Gen. William E. De Puy, assistan
CIA-type operator than an old-school military man. At for contacts, special techniques, and the mystique 1
Fort Bragg 's Special Forces Center 'and in the new Air went with working in the backrooms of military1
otter, knew General Taylor, knew he was more a years ago saw the value of travelling the CIA r
man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But the insiders knew throughout the government. Farsighted Army offi
From his position close to the throne, General Tay-. !lion chief in 1950 and x951; Lt. Cen. W R
for rapidly cemented relations between the CIA and (Peers was chief of CIA clandestine trg in 1
as deputy director, Central Intelligence. John McCone of State William Bundy started o/yIn CIA on theli
lements of the Army. General Marshall 5. Larter and the head of Western Entcrprise',h CIA cover
F ' ATthe old master, Allen Dulles, as director. The 'telIigence side, wandered over to Defense, then
os wan drar.:,..,t1.. ,.norwatnr1 ? "1 rr nn Berets" and Stntn whnrn hic cnerialited training was nut to i
Air Cavalry units ascended to prominence over con-~ I bert Komer went from CIA to the White Hou
661 as an Ambassador in charge of "pa
t1l
Apr e0114 4 frs4 f 4erCeUC j y 6
Forces officers were on special 'assignment Wit I t e ication,Q a decision makers on the New Team toe
h
at agency. any ,
CIA, or had had assignments with t
zer having completed his tour. The man who 11
stepped down from the Army in a huff was back,
ger than life and in the number one job. The A
CIA example spread like wildfire. The Air
rushed to create its own Special Air Warfare
from assorted. remnants of the Bay of Pigs resouu:
The Navy created its own version of Special Wa
units in its SEAL teams and others. With General
for it was "Get on the Team" or get left behind. I
new President and his brother had embraced the
cept of counterinsurgency; the New Team was, r
to meet the challenge.
General Shoup and the Marines were not on it
team. Although the regular military forces had
highest regard for the Marines as experts in Sp
Warfare, the Army-CIA enthusiasts passed the
The emerging team prided itself on its readine
perform anywhere in the world, "wherever and w
ever we suspect Communist aggression," as Ge
Shoup says. To repeat, the vital force in the new
tarism was not the traditional military. It was not
who spearheaded the "massive and swift invasio
th Dominican Republic in 1965," to which Shou
[Ors in his Atlantic article. It was the CIA-Sp
orces elements which opened the door, and were t
ollowed by the regular military, after basic decis c
had been made. Even the Marine colonel who op m
early,-contacts with Dominican officials in Washin
and later in the Dominican Republic, was war
with and through the CIA representatives, no