General Walter Bedell Smith - Grave of a Famous Person on Waymarking.com

Walter Bedell "Beetle" Smith was born on October 5, 1895 in Indianapolis, Indiana. During World War I he was commissioned as an officer in 1917 and wounded in the Aisne-Marne Offensive in 1918. After the war he was a staff officer and an instructor at the United States Army Infantry School. In 1941 he became Secretary of the General Staff. The next year he became Secretary to the Combined Chiefs of Staff. His duties involved participation in discussions at the highest level, and Smith often briefed President Franklin D. Roosevelt on strategic matters. Smith became chief of staff to Eisenhower at Allied Forces Headquarters (AFHQ) in September 1942. He acquired a reputation as Eisenhower's "hatchet man" for his brusque and demanding manner. However, he was also capable of representing Eisenhower on sensitive missions requiring diplomatic skill. Smith was involved in negotiating the Armistice between Italy and Allied armed forces, which he signed on behalf of Eisenhower. In 1944 he became Chief of Staff of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), again under Eisenhower. He successfully negotiated food aid for the starving Dutch civilian population in the cities in the west of the country, and opened discussions for the peaceful and complete German capitulation in Holland. In May 1945 he met with the representatives of the German High Command to negotiate the surrender of the German Armed Forces. After the war he served as Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1946 to 1948. He became Director of Central Intelligence, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, in 1950. Smith reorganized the agency, redefined its structure and mission, and gave it a new sense of purpose. He made the CIA the arm of government primarily responsible for covert operations. He left the CIA in 1953 to become Under Secretary of State. After retiring as Under Secretary of State in 1954, Smith continued to serve the Eisenhower administration in various posts. He was a member of the National Security Training Commission from 1955 to 1957, the National War College board of consultants from 1956 to 1959, the Office of Defense Mobilization Special Stockpile Advisory Committee from 1957 to 1958, the President's Citizen Advisors on the Mutual Security Program from 1956 to 1957, and the President's Committee on Disarmament in 1958. Smith was a consultant at the Special Projects Office (Disarmament) in the Executive Office of the President from 1955 to 1956. He also served as Chairman of the Advisory Council of the President's Committee on Fund Raising, and as a member-at-large from 1958 to 1961. In recognition of his other former boss, he was a member of the George C. Marshall Foundation Advisory Committee from 1960 to 1961. General Smith suffered a heart attack and died on August 9, 1961. He is resting in Section 7 of Arlington National Cemetery, just a short distance from the final resting place of General George C. Marshall.
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Description: Some say that "Beetle" Smith, as he was called by contemporaries, had the countenance of a Bulldog and needed that temperment to fill the assigned role as hatchet man for an affable Supreme Allied Commander, Dwight D. Eisenhower. He may have acquired that, along with a brusque manner and a salty vocubulary, in his first service as a Private in the Indiana National Guard. He entered the U.S. Army in 1917 as an Infantry Reserve Officer, and served in France with the 4th Division in World War I. When General George C. Marshall became the Army's wartime Chief of Staff, he called in Major Smith, a protege, to be Assistant to the Secretary of the General Staff. He moved up to Secretary in September 1941 and in Febraury 1942 was named U.S. Secretary of the Combined Chiefs of Staff. Just before the invasion of North Africa, Marshall sent him to England to be Eisenhower's Chief of Staff. He filled that role until the German surrender, which he stage-managed for his boss. Ike subsequently called him "the greatest general manager of the war." Following the war, he served as U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union; Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); and Under Secretary of State. He died as a Full General at the age of 65 of a heart attack on August 9, 1961 at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington. He was subsequently buried in Section 7 of Arlington National Cemetery. Source/Credit: Arlington National Cemetery Date of birth: 10/05/1895 Date of death: 08/09/1961 Area of notoriety: Military Marker Type: Headstone Setting: Outdoor Visiting Hours/Restrictions: Daily - 8 a.m to 5 p.m. Fee required?: No Web site: [Web Link]

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Date Logged Log   03/27/2022 Don.Morfe visited it