12-10-2015, 08:06 AM
So. continuing the saga of Boise B Smith, it seems that during the war he was G-5 Civil Affairs in the European Theater, which would make him one of Eisenhower's "warrior-diplomats".
Boise B Smith was on the training staff. The Civil Affairs recruits were mostly professional people, reservists with special skills called up for the duration of the war. The average age was 40 when the program began, lowering somewhat thereafter. These were accountants, architects, people who could contribute to "administration of occupied territories". It's worth checking out the miserable look on some of their faces as they're traipsing through Shrivenham in full pack, lol.
Okay, so.... guess what Boise B Smith was actually doing with these people?
He was teaching them how to use a pistol.
Our friend Boise, it seems, was a crack shot. One of the best the Army had to offer. And while he was training others, he was also being trained, in Civil Affairs.
It's most enlightening to look at the "Blue Book" of the G-5 crew at SHAEF, to see what these people were actually doing. You could call it... "nation-building", in a way. Begin with de-nazification, then ensure food and water and medical needs are met, then identify individuals who are capable of leadership, then work with them and elevate them so things start getting done. And of course, while you're doing that there's a whole separate activity of identifying "un"-desirables and somehow removing them from the equation. Civil affairs and intelligence go hand in hand. OSS records show they spent a lot of time answering inquiries from G-5 Civil Affairs HQ.
The newspaper clippings I've found so far seem to indicate that Boise B Smith was already a deputy chief when he left the DPD, which would have been 14 months before Dec 1943, so about Oct of 1942. By 1950 he's definitely back at the DPD with that same job title - and he still has that job title in 1963, along with his additional role as Director of the Civil Defense and Disaster Commission. (That latter role had previously been filled by Col John W Mayo, up until 1962 sometime).
The interesting thing about this fellow is, he has no staff. All the other Deputy Chiefs of the DPD have staff. This guy... nothing. So, either he mapped out all the shelters all by himself (doubtful), or, someone else provided the staff (more likely).
So now, this guy Boise B Smith, is one half of the Civil Defense team in Dallas in 1963. The other half, is Lt Col John Alston ("Jack") Crichton, who is the director of the actual Dallas Emergency Operations Center. Crichton is the guy with the codes, he's the guy who has to be hip to the daily emergency protocols and so on. But Boise B Smith is on the civilian side, he's doing shelter planning and that kind of thing. These two people have to work hand in hand, their jobs would make their paths cross many times in many ways. For instance, communications - if your mayor and police chief have a designated shelter "other than" the main EOC, then there has to be some kind of communication in place to these heads of government. That would take both Crichton and Smith, to make such links happen.
Boise B Smith, it turns out, also knows Harold Byrd, the owner of the Texas School Book Depository building. Boise B Smith Jr is listed as an insider in SEC reports pertaining to Lone Star Industries.
Col Smith's counterpart, Jack Crichton, is of course a very interesting fellow in his own right. Fabian Escalante, the head of Cuban intelligence at the time, claims in his book that in 1959, in his capacity as Vice President and head of Eisenhower's National Security Council, Richard Nixon selected Jack Crichton and George HW Bush to organize private fundraising for Operation 40. Crichton knew "everyone", he was heavily connected into the Dallas oil community (being a top-notch oil man himself, having discovered what was at that time the largest oil field in the world, in Kuwait), he was business partners with DH Byrd, HL Hunt, and George de Mohrenschildt. And he was also a member of the Dallas Petroleum Club, at the same time David Atlee Phillips was a member there. Crichton's 488th Reserve Military Intelligence unit included important JFK figures like Westbrook, Gannaway, Revill, and even Winston Lawson. Crichton is also responsible for selecting Marina's first translator Ilya Mamantov, when the DPD first interviewed her - and it seems he substantially mistranslated Marina's statements to make it look like she was implicating her husband.
We know what Crichton was doing at 12:30 on Nov 22, he was attending a luncheon at the Adolphus Hotel.
However we have no idea what Boise B Smith was doing at the time. No one ever asked him.
Boise B Smith was on the training staff. The Civil Affairs recruits were mostly professional people, reservists with special skills called up for the duration of the war. The average age was 40 when the program began, lowering somewhat thereafter. These were accountants, architects, people who could contribute to "administration of occupied territories". It's worth checking out the miserable look on some of their faces as they're traipsing through Shrivenham in full pack, lol.
Okay, so.... guess what Boise B Smith was actually doing with these people?
He was teaching them how to use a pistol.
Our friend Boise, it seems, was a crack shot. One of the best the Army had to offer. And while he was training others, he was also being trained, in Civil Affairs.
It's most enlightening to look at the "Blue Book" of the G-5 crew at SHAEF, to see what these people were actually doing. You could call it... "nation-building", in a way. Begin with de-nazification, then ensure food and water and medical needs are met, then identify individuals who are capable of leadership, then work with them and elevate them so things start getting done. And of course, while you're doing that there's a whole separate activity of identifying "un"-desirables and somehow removing them from the equation. Civil affairs and intelligence go hand in hand. OSS records show they spent a lot of time answering inquiries from G-5 Civil Affairs HQ.
The newspaper clippings I've found so far seem to indicate that Boise B Smith was already a deputy chief when he left the DPD, which would have been 14 months before Dec 1943, so about Oct of 1942. By 1950 he's definitely back at the DPD with that same job title - and he still has that job title in 1963, along with his additional role as Director of the Civil Defense and Disaster Commission. (That latter role had previously been filled by Col John W Mayo, up until 1962 sometime).
The interesting thing about this fellow is, he has no staff. All the other Deputy Chiefs of the DPD have staff. This guy... nothing. So, either he mapped out all the shelters all by himself (doubtful), or, someone else provided the staff (more likely).
So now, this guy Boise B Smith, is one half of the Civil Defense team in Dallas in 1963. The other half, is Lt Col John Alston ("Jack") Crichton, who is the director of the actual Dallas Emergency Operations Center. Crichton is the guy with the codes, he's the guy who has to be hip to the daily emergency protocols and so on. But Boise B Smith is on the civilian side, he's doing shelter planning and that kind of thing. These two people have to work hand in hand, their jobs would make their paths cross many times in many ways. For instance, communications - if your mayor and police chief have a designated shelter "other than" the main EOC, then there has to be some kind of communication in place to these heads of government. That would take both Crichton and Smith, to make such links happen.
Boise B Smith, it turns out, also knows Harold Byrd, the owner of the Texas School Book Depository building. Boise B Smith Jr is listed as an insider in SEC reports pertaining to Lone Star Industries.
Col Smith's counterpart, Jack Crichton, is of course a very interesting fellow in his own right. Fabian Escalante, the head of Cuban intelligence at the time, claims in his book that in 1959, in his capacity as Vice President and head of Eisenhower's National Security Council, Richard Nixon selected Jack Crichton and George HW Bush to organize private fundraising for Operation 40. Crichton knew "everyone", he was heavily connected into the Dallas oil community (being a top-notch oil man himself, having discovered what was at that time the largest oil field in the world, in Kuwait), he was business partners with DH Byrd, HL Hunt, and George de Mohrenschildt. And he was also a member of the Dallas Petroleum Club, at the same time David Atlee Phillips was a member there. Crichton's 488th Reserve Military Intelligence unit included important JFK figures like Westbrook, Gannaway, Revill, and even Winston Lawson. Crichton is also responsible for selecting Marina's first translator Ilya Mamantov, when the DPD first interviewed her - and it seems he substantially mistranslated Marina's statements to make it look like she was implicating her husband.
We know what Crichton was doing at 12:30 on Nov 22, he was attending a luncheon at the Adolphus Hotel.
However we have no idea what Boise B Smith was doing at the time. No one ever asked him.