Maj. Gen. John K. Singlaub (United States Army – ret.) has died. He was 100.
General Singlaub trained resistance fighters in German-occupied France and rescued Allied prisoners of war held by the Japanese during World War II. He conducted intelligence operations during the Chinese Civil War and in the Korean War while assigned to the C.I.A., and he commanded secret Army forays into North Vietnam and neutral Laos and Cambodia during the 1960s to ambush Communist troops.
A sturdy 5-foot-7 with an enduring military brush haircut, General Singlaub seemed fit for combat long after his last war. He was “the kind of guy you’d like to have on your side in a barroom brawl,” Pat Murphy, an acquaintance and the publisher of The Arizona Republic at the time, told The New York Times in 1986.
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But for all his military feats, General Singlaub’s career ended over issues of grand strategy.Mr. Carter removed him as the military’s chief of staff in South Korea in May 1977 after he told a reporter for The Washington Post that the president’s plan to withdraw American troops there could lead to another North Korean invasion.
General Singlaub later maintained that his remarks were off the record, an assertion disputed by The Post. But Mr. Carter was outraged at what he perceived as a challenge to civilian authority.
His order recalling General Singlaub from Korea was the first action of its type since President Harry S. Truman fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur as the Pacific commander when MacArthur advocated extending the Korean War into China.
After being reassigned to Fort McPherson in Georgia, General Singlaub criticized the Carter administration’s military policies again in April 1978, in a talk before R.O.T.C. cadets at Georgia Tech. He called Mr. Carter’s decision not to produce a neutron bomb “ridiculous” and “militarily unsound” and criticized the administration’s efforts to give up control of the Panama Canal.
The Army ordered him to report to the Pentagon immediately, announcing a day later that it had accepted his request to retire.
He was also involved (as a private citizen) in the “Iran-Contra affair”.
General Singlaub told Congress that Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, while a National Security Council staff aide, had approved of his being highly visible in his support for the contras. The goal, General Singlaub testified, was to take public attention away from the secret government program. Colonel North was eventually convicted of obstructing Congress, destroying official documents and accepting an illegal gift, but the convictions were later overturned on appeal.
General Singlaub, who acted as a private citizen in helping the contras, was never accused of wrongdoing in the investigation. But in his 1991 memoir, “Hazardous Duty,” written with Malcolm McConnell, he bristled at what he considered the defaming of his character.
“For a decade I’d been smeared as a right-wing fanatic, even a crypto-fascist, by some members of the media,” he wrote. “I’d always found this ironic, considering the fact that I was one of a handful of American soldiers who had risked torture and execution by both German and Japanese fascists while serving behind enemy lines in Europe and the Far East.”
Moses J. Moseley, actor. He was a “pet zombie” in “The Walking Dead”.
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I am old enough to remember former president Carter’s time in office. I tell my friends that he was a horrible president, but a good former president. It seems like lately, the last part of that might have to change. It looks like he has gone from building housing for the poor, to trying to act like an elder statesman, and that look for him is definitely not a good one.
The General who passed away sounds like a much greater man that Carter is, even though the former president is a strong Christian, according to reports. A man who dedicates himself and his entire life to protecting the nation from harm, appears to have done more for the country than a man who was a poor president, at best, and who builds homes for the poor, which while noble, only affects a limited number of people.
And while we watch, the heroes from our wars continue to leave us, much to our detriment.
I’m coming around to the position that former presidents should, once they are out of office, just shut the fark up. At least on politics.
I wouldn’t mind them building homes for people, or raising money for charity. But as soon as it gets into matters of public policy, there should be a strict “no comment” policy.
“You want my opinion, as an ex-president? Fine. Buy me a couple-three beers and I’ll give it to you. Off the record, not for publication. If the current president wants my opinion, all he has to do is ask me, and I’ll give it to him. Privately. With no press around.”