Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter

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Roscoe Henry Hillenkoetter
File:Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter.gif
Rear Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter, Navy, (Ret.)
Born (1897-05-08)May 8, 1897
St. Louis, Missouri
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New York City[1]
Buried
Section 3
Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington County, Virginia, United States
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Allegiance  United States
Service/branch Seal of the United States Department of the Navy.svgUnited States Navy
Rank US-O9 insignia.svg Vice admiral
Commands held Assistant Naval Attaché, France: 1933–35, 1938–40, 1940–41 (Vichy regime), and 1946–47
Commanding Officer USS Missouri 1946
Officer in Charge of Intelligence, on the staff of Commander in Chief, Pacific Ocean Area (Adm. Chester W. Nimitz), September 1942 – March 1943
Promoted to rear admiral, 29 November 1946
Director of Central Intelligence (CIG) 26 September 1947
Director of Central Intelligence (CIA) 8 December 1947–1950
Commander, Cruiser Division 1, Cruiser-Destroyer Force, Pacific Fleet, October 1950 – August 1951
Third Naval District, New York (July 1952 – August 1956)[2]
Vice admiral, 9 April 1956
Inspector General of the Navy, 1 August 1956
Retired from Navy, 1 May 1957[3]
Battles/wars World War II
Korean War
Relations Jane C. Hillenkoetter (April 7, 1913 – March 20, 2001)
Other work Executive

Roscoe Henry Hillenkoetter (May 8, 1897 – June 18, 1982) was the third director of the post-World War II United States Central Intelligence Group (CIG), the third Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), and the first director of the Central Intelligence Agency created by the National Security Act of 1947. He served as DCI and director of the CIG and the CIA from May 1, 1947 to October 7, 1950 and after his retirement from the United States Navy was a member of the board of governors of National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) from 1957 to 1962.

Education and military career

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Hillenkoetter graduated from the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland in 1919.

He served tours in naval intelligence, several as assistant naval attaché to France. As Executive Officer of the USS West Virginia (BB-48), he survived the attack on Pearl Harbor, and afterwards was officer in charge of intelligence on Chester W. Nimitz's Pacific Fleet staff.

Then Captain Hillenkoetter commanded the USS Missouri in 1946.

First Director of the CIA

President Truman persuaded a reluctant Hillenkoetter, then a rear admiral, to become Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), and run the Central Intelligence Group (September 1947). Under the National Security Act of 1947 he was nominated and confirmed by the U.S. Senate as DCI, now in charge of the newly established Central Intelligence Agency (December 1947). At first, the U.S. State Department directed the new CIA's covert operations component, and George F. Kennan chose Frank Wisner to be its director. Hillenkoetter expressed doubt that the same agency could be effective at both covert action and intelligence analysis.[4]

As DCI, Hillenkoetter was periodically called to testify before Congress. One instance concerned the CIA’s first major Soviet intelligence failure, the failure to predict the Soviet atomic bomb test (August 29, 1949). In the weeks following the test, but prior to the CIA’s detection of it, Hillenkoetter released the 9/20/49 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) stating, “the earliest possible date by which the USSR might be expected to produce an atomic bomb is mid-1950 and the most probable date is mid-1953.”[5] Hillenkoetter was called before the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE) to explain how the CIA not only failed to predict the test, but also how they did not even detect it after it occurred. JCAE members were steaming that the CIA could be taken by such surprise.[6] Hillenkoetter imprecisely replied that the CIA knew it would take the Soviets approximately five years to build the bomb, but the CIA misjudged when they started:

"We knew that they were working on it, and we started here, and this organization [CIA] was set up after the war and we started in the middle and we didn’t know when they had started and it had to be picked up from what we could get along there. That is what I say: this thing of getting a fact that you definitely have on the exploding of this bomb has helped us in going back and looking over what we had before, and it will help us in what we get in the future. But you picked up in the mid-air on the thing, and we didn’t know when they started, sir."[7]

The JCAE was not satisfied with Hillenkoetter’s answer and his and the CIA’s reputation suffered among government heads in Washington, even though the press did not write about the CIA’s first Soviet intelligence failure.[8]

The U.S. government had no intelligence warning of North Korea's invasion (June 25, 1950) of South Korea. DCI Hillenkoetter convened an ad hoc group to prepare estimates of likely communist behavior on the Korean peninsula; it worked well enough that his successor institutionalized it.

Two days prior to North Korea’s invasion of South Korea, Hillenkoetter went before Congress (the House Foreign Affairs Committee) and testified that the CIA had good sources in Korea, implying that the CIA would be able to provide warning before any invasion.[9] Following the invasion, the press suspected the administration was surprised by it,[10] and wondered whether Hillenkoetter would be removed.[11] The DCI was not influential with President Harry S. Truman, but Hillenkoetter insisted to the President that as the Director of Central Intelligence, it would be politically advantageous to testify before Congress to try to remedy the situation. After the testimony, some Senators told the Washington Post that Hillenkoetter confused them when explaining the CIA did not predict when North Korea would invade by saying it was not the CIA’s job to analyze intelligence, just to pass it on to high-ranking policymakers.[12] Even though most Senators believed Hillenkoetter ably explained the CIA’s performance, many at the CIA were embarrassed by the news reports and by mid-August the rumors of Hillenkoetter’s removal were confirmed when President Truman announced that General Walter Bedell "Beetle" Smith would replace him as DCI.[13]

President Truman installed a new DCI in October. Nebraska Congressman Howard Buffett alleged that Hillenkoetter's classified testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee "established American responsibility for the Korean outbreak," and sought to have it declassified until his death in 1964.[14]

Resumption of active military duty

Admiral Hillenkoetter returned to the fleet, commanding Cruiser Division 1 of the Cruiser-Destroyer Force, Pacific Fleet from October 1950 – August 1951 during the Korean War. He then commanded the Third Naval District with headquarters in New York City from July 1952 to August 1956 and was promoted to the rank of vice admiral on 9 April 1956.

His last assignment was as Inspector General of the Navy from 1 August 1956 until his retirement from the Navy on 1 May 1957.

Board member of NICAP

The National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena was formed in 1956, with the organization's corporate charter being approved October 24.[15] Hillenkoetter was on NICAP's board of governors from about 1957 until 1962.[16] Donald E. Keyhoe, NICAP director and Hillenkoetter's Naval Academy classmate, wrote that Hillenkoetter wanted public disclosure of UFO evidence.[17] Perhaps Hillenkoetter's best-known statement on the subject was in 1960 in a letter to Congress, as reported in The New York Times: "Behind the scenes, high-ranking Air Force officers are soberly concerned about UFOs. But through official secrecy and ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense."[18]

Death

Hillenkoetter lived in Weehawken, New Jersey following his retirement from the Navy, until his death on June 18, 1982, at New York City's Mount Sinai Hospital.[19]

Portrayal

Actor Leon Russom played him in an episode of Dark Skies, a 1996 conspiracy theory television series.

Awards

Dates of rank

Ensign Lieutenant junior grade Lieutenant Lieutenant commander
O-1 O-2 O-3 O-4
US Navy O1 insignia.svg US Navy O2 insignia.svg US Navy O3 insignia.svg US Navy O4 insignia.svg
7 June 1919 7 June 1922 7 June 1925 30 June 1934
Commander Captain Rear admiral Vice admiral
O-5 O-6 O-7, O-8 O-9
US Navy O5 insignia.svg US Navy O6 insignia.svg US Navy O8 insignia.svg US Navy O9 insignia.svg
1 July 1939 18 June 1942 29 November 1946 9 April 1956

References

  1. ↑ Roscoe H(enry) Hillenkoetter. Almanac of Famous People, 9th ed. Updated: 08/17/2007. Thomson Gale, 2007. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Michigan: Gale Group, 2009 (http://www.galenet.com/servlet/BioRC) Fee (via Fairfax County Public Library). Document Number: K1601044553.
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Central Intelligence Agency. (1949). Intelligence Memorandum No. 225.; quoted in Barrett, D. M. (2005). The CIA and Congress: The Untold Story from Truman to Kennedy. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. p. 55.
  6. ↑ Barrett, D. M. (2005). The CIA and Congress: The Untold Story from Truman to Kennedy. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. p. 56.
  7. ↑ JCAE Hearing, 10-17-49, CIS Unpublished House Hearings; quoted in Barrett, D. M. (2005). The CIA and Congress: The Untold Story from Truman to Kennedy. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. p. 59-60.
  8. ↑ Barrett, D. M. (2005). The CIA and Congress: The Untold Story from Truman to Kennedy. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. p. 62.
  9. ↑ Congressional Record 7-13-50, p.10086; quoted in Barrett, D. M. (2005). The CIA and Congress: The Untold Story from Truman to Kennedy. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. p. 82.
  10. ↑ (1950, June 25). The New York Times, p. 1.; quoted in Barrett, D. M. (2005). The CIA and Congress: The Untold Story from Truman to Kennedy. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. p. 83.
  11. ↑ Barrett, D. M. (2005). The CIA and Congress: The Untold Story from Truman to Kennedy. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. p.83.
  12. ↑ Barrett, D. M. (2005). The CIA and Congress: The Untold Story from Truman to Kennedy. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. p. 84-85.
  13. ↑ Barrett, D. M. (2005). The CIA and Congress: The Untold Story from Truman to Kennedy. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. p. 85, 89.
  14. ↑ Rothbard, Murray N.. Confessions of a Right-Wing Liberal, Ludwig von Mises Institute
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. (page 28 in the Dutch translation of that book)
  18. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  19. ↑ Kihss, Peter. "ADM. ROSCOE H. HILLENKOETTER, 85, FIRST DIRECTOR OF THE C.I.A., DIES", The New York Times, June 21, 1982. Accessed November 13, 2012. Vice Adm. Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter, the first director of the Central Intelligence Agency, died Friday night at Mount Sinai Hospital. He was 85 years old and had lived in Weehawken, N.J., since his retirement from the Navy in 1958."

External links

Government offices
Preceded by Commanding Officer USS Missouri
November 6, 1945 – May 31, 1946		 Succeeded by
Captain Tom B. Hill
Preceded by Director of Central Intelligence
May 1, 1947 – October 7, 1950		 Succeeded by
Gen. Walter Bedell Smith
Preceded by Commanding Officer Third Naval District
July 1952 – August 1956		 Succeeded by
RADM Milton E. Miles

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