As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
Perhaps my most admired American of the 20th century, and no I did not agree with his offshore imprint and am an isolationist, as that imprint was abused as we all know by the internationalists which started with Woody Wilson and hopefully has ended with President Donald Trump, was the remarkable Lt. General, Vernon Walters.
I have spoken of him in the past here as he was the John Quincy Adams of diplomatic reach, and I hope that Barron Trump will be available to serve in the capacity when his time comes, because Vernon Walters could speak 5 languages, was a man of duty, honor, morals and American ideals.
I always wanted to read his book, Silent Missions, but I could not afford such a book, and I finally ran across it on archive.org.
I'm just starting the book, but wanted to share what was a typical General Walters story. To set this up, with all his European experience, the army decided he best could be used as truck driver. Somehow in God's Grace, his being too scared to not obey stupid orders and requests, he made monumental additions to General Patton's Operation Torch in North Africa in speaking with the Vichy French.
He literally was doing his job as interpreter and interrogator, and doing is so well that commanders and other men were drawn to him as Second Lieutenant. He did is so well that he was ordered back to the United States to teach a course in interrogation of enemy soldiers which were captured.
While at this position, the following event took place and it is amusing in how lame brain the Pentagon was and still is, like most in government. I will meet you on the other side as the story is self explanatory.
One day in April 1943 I received a telephone call from a colo¬ nel at the Pentagon, Colonel Charles Leonard. He worked in Foreign Liaison. He told me that he had discussed the request that he was about to make to me with Colonel Banfill, who was the commandant at Camp Ritchie. Basically, he told me that he wanted me to report to the Pentagon the following morning in order to accompany a group of Portuguese around the United States. Portugal, though it had a centuries-old alliance with Great Britain, was neutral in the war, at least officially. We were taking three groups of Portuguese officers on an extensive visit in order to impress them with the growing power and determi¬ nation of the United States and to convince them we would cer¬ tainly win the war. This was part of a broad campaign to obtain Portuguese agreement to allow us to use the Azores for anti-sub¬ marine forces, both surface and air. The Allies were sustaining extremely heavy shipping losses in the North Atlantic at the hands of the German U-boat wolf packs. Colonel Leonard told me he wanted me there the following morning at nine o’clock ready to take this group around. I said to him that I thought there must be some misunderstanding since I did not speak Por¬ tuguese. He replied, “No, but you speak Spanish, French, Ital¬ ian and all of that stuff, and you’ll certainly understand what they are saying.” I protested and said, “Colonel, I love to hear Carmen Miranda’s songs, but I cannot understand what the words mean. I don’t understand Portuguese.” He then said, “Lieutenant, there is a misunderstanding. You seem to be under the impression that I am inviting you to be here tomorrow morning at nine o’clock. I am not. It’s an order. See that you are here, and see that you are speaking Portuguese.” I checked out with the post adjutant and he told me that Colonel Banfill had agreed to this mission. I set about finding some Portuguese ma¬ terial to try and familiarize myself with the language. I knew that it was closely related to Spanish, and that from past experi¬ ence I could read it fairly well. I rounded up some issues of Em Guarda, a propaganda magazine that the United States was put¬ ting out at that time for distribution in Brazil. I perused this magazine and was worried because I could read it so easily. In fact, from Spanish I could understand 90 per cent of what was written in the magazine. Yet, I did know that when I heard Por¬ tuguese spoken, I could not understand it nearly as well as I could understand the written words. The spoken language sounded a great deal different to me
I remember in archive footage of PBS McNeil Lehrer, seeing this fat old jowled man, and wondering who this Reagan era person was. He simply did not look the glamorous part. As one began to notice though when Ronald Reagan placed him at the United Nations as Jean Kirkpatrick had left, remarkably, the Soviets stopped voting against everything American. The UN was actually a platform which was benefiting the United States and not working against America. This was all Vernon Walters. He simply was remarkable. While Henry Kissinger received all the attention and credit for being a diplomat which he did earn, Vernon Walters was even more capable and operated in the shadows silently and was every bit the equal of the accomplished Dr. Kissinger.
As I have stated, America does not produce a great deal of people like this, John Quincy Adams was in the 19th century, Vernon Walters was in the 20th, and perhaps Barron Trump with his heritage and exposure could become such a servant of America for all our benefit.
America was blessed by the man who could not speak Portuguese, but when ordered to do so, managed to speak Portuguese. It is all amusing, but that is the life of Vernon Walters and somehow God made it all work for him, for America.
Nuff Said
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