Edward L. Rowny
I remember the day General Lemnitzer pinned on my first star. Two days earlier
the general gave me a highly sensitive secret document that, he said, only he, the
President of the United States, and now I knew about. He asked me to study it and
give him a recommendation.
I analyzed the paper and next day gave him my recommendation. Lemnitzer
accepted my view and that same day talked to the President about it. The
following morning I was called at home at 7 a.m. and told that General Lemnitzer
wanted to see me in his office at 8 o'clock. It was unusual that he would want to
see me that early. While drinking my coffee I took a quick look at the paper and,
to my horror, saw my memo in the Evans and Novak column of the Washington
Post. I went to the office worried about how my memo had leaked. I recalled that
Lemnitzer told me that only he, the President, and I knew about it. I had even
typed my recommendation to him myself so not even a secretary would know about
it.
When I got to the office, I had to cool my heels outside his office for half an hour.
This was also highly unusual since General Lemnitzer was always very prompt.
It made me all the more nervous. When I finally entered his office at 8:30, there
were my wife and family. Lemnitzer said he called me in to have the pleasure of
pinning on my star. I was as surprised as I was relieved. I said, "I thought you
were calling me in to bawl me out for having leaked that document." Lemnitzer
gave me his characteristic giggle and said: "You have a lot to learn about how this
town launches trial balloons. This government is the only ship of state that leaks
at the top? He said the document was leaked from the White House to see what
the public reaction would be. I've learned a lot about deliberate leaks since then.
But at the time it was a rude shock.
I recall another interesting incident while I worked on the chairman's staff group.
It was the time of the Cuban invasion. I knew something unusual was going on
because the same officers were going in to see General Lemnitzer and we on the
staff were excluded. Only two or three officers in the JCS worked on the Cuban
invasion and they worked directly for the chairman. While we overheard a few
things, we were not involved in planning the invasion and not certain what was
going on.
After the invasion failed, we shared our office with the persons who were
investigating why it failed. One was Robert Kennedy. Another was General
Maxwell Taylor and the third man was Richard Helms who later became head of
the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency].
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