Vernon A. Walters

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Walters as the United States Ambassador

Vernon Anthony Walters (born January 3, 1917 in New York , † February 10, 2002 in West Palm Beach , Florida ) was an American soldier , intelligence officer and diplomat . For over five decades he served eight different US presidents as an anti-communist fighter in the Cold War , initially in an executive role and later as a planner of open and covert actions and negotiations around the world.

Walters came into public perception only in the last third of his career, especially 1972-1976 as deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) , 1985-1989 as ambassador to the United Nations and 1989-1991 as ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany during the German reunification .

Origin and private matters

Walters was born in New York as the son of British immigrants and lived with his parents in France from 1923 and in Great Britain from 1928 during his childhood and youth . For five years, he attended Stonyhurst College , a Jesuit - boarding school in Lancashire , England. As a child he spoke six Western European languages ​​fluently and later also acquired excellent Russian and basic Chinese skills. At the age of 16 he returned to the United States without formal school leaving qualifications and worked in his father's insurance office, particularly as a claims investigator.

The devout Catholic also went to mass every day when traveling. Walters was never married, and there is no evidence that he ever had a sexual relationship with a woman or a man. In his memoirs for 1942, he stated that he had no sexual relationship. Walters also describes how in the 1960s French intelligence services tried several times to seduce him with both women and men until they finally accepted that Walters did not respond. The pastor of a church he regularly attended in retirement described him as a "chaste bachelor".

From his private life, only his particular fondness for chocolate is known, which he always wanted to exchange for cigarettes even in the scarce times in the military .

Soldier in World War II

In 1941 Walters was drafted into the US Army. Noticed by his language skills, he was called to an officer course in the first year. Initially trained as a military policeman , he switched to the military intelligence service of the US Army at an early age . There he was deployed in constantly changing liaison teams , units, training centers and as an interpreter .

After the USA entered World War II (December 7, 1941) , he took part in Operation Torch , the invasion of North Africa, near Oran in 1942 . The French colonies there were under the control of the Vichy regime , which was allied with the German Reich . Due to courageous operations and unofficial negotiations with the French, he was promoted several times quickly.

He was involved in the negotiations with the formally neutral Portugal about the use of the Azores as a base for the US Army Air Force to protect the convoys across the Atlantic and was involved in Brazil entering the war with an expeditionary corps. In the staff of the 5th US Army under Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark he was assigned to the more than 25,000 Brazilians of the Força Expedicionária Brasileira as a liaison officer and spent 1944 on the Italian front , where he was wounded in an explosion. In June 1944 he was General Clark's personal adjutant when he marched into Rome . He briefly served as an interpreter for US President Harry S. Truman .

In these positions, Walters established personal relationships with officers of various allied armies who reached high-ranking positions in the military or politics of their countries in the post-war period.

Brazil, Marshall Plan and White House

At the end of the Second World War, the Brazilian army units stood with Walters near Genoa . In 1945 he was transferred to the US Embassy in Rio de Janeiro as Deputy Military Attaché. In 1948 he became a member of the personal staff of Averell Harriman , who set up the headquarters in Paris for the implementation of the Marshall Plan . Walters traveled with Harriman several times to all participating states, including Greece . There, the Second World War had passed almost seamlessly into the Greek Civil War between the official government, backed by the Western Allies, and the left-wing partisans dominated by the Communists . The latter saw themselves deprived of participation in power according to their share in the fight against the Germans and their support in the population.

When Harriman was appointed advisor and international troubleshooter (crisis manager) to President Truman in 1949 , Walters remained on his staff and worked as an advisor and interpreter in the White House . One of the reasons for his further rise is his connection with Fritz GA Kraemer , who had patronized him. In 1950 Walters traveled with Truman and Harriman to meet US General Douglas MacArthur to settle differences of opinion over strategy in the Korean War . For a short time, Walters was installed in Korea as the permanent liaison between MacArthur and the White House. His task was to bind the little cooperative commander in chief, who particularly against the declared will of the political leadership , demanded the massive use of napalm and nuclear weapons , more closely to Washington.

Paris-Dauphine University in the former NATO headquarters

NATO, Iran and again in the White House

In 1951, General Dwight D. Eisenhower recruited Walters to join his team of interpreters and advisers when setting up the new NATO headquarters SHAPE in Paris.

Immediately after Walters took up the post, Harriman once again borrowed his former associate for a difficult mission. In cooperation with the British, Harriman negotiated with the Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh about compensation for the expropriation and nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company . After these negotiations were unsuccessful, the United States convinced Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1953 to make use of his constitutional right and to remove his prime minister. The CIA supported the ousting of Mossadegh with Operation Ajax .

Back at NATO headquarters in Paris, Walters served in the protocol department as Eisenhower's assistant and, after his election as US president in November 1953, formally in the department of logistics and procurement, a position that did not match his qualifications. However, according to his own statements, he took part in intelligence training courses during this time.

From 1955 Walters worked again in Washington with the permanent NATO group. He was also an interpreter for President Eisenhower and Vice President Richard Nixon . He translated for Eisenhower on state visits and international conferences, for example at the Four Power Conferences in Geneva in 1955 and in Paris in 1960 , which was overshadowed by the " U-2 incident" surrounding the shooting down of Gary Powers . In 1958 he accompanied Nixon on a controversial state visit across South America. Violent clashes broke out in Caracas , Venezuela . In his memoir, Walters praised Nixon's personal courage and determination at the time.

Military attaché

In the 1960s, Walter made a career as a military attaché at various US embassies in Europe and South America.

Rome

From 1960, Walters kept in contact with the Italian army in Italy . This was expanded after the Second World War with massive help from the USA and NATO and had a great need for coordination. In Rome, Walters met again the head of the Italian intelligence service SIFAR , General Giovanni De Lorenzo , with whom he had a personal friendship from the Second World War.

De Lorenzo was working under the code name "Piano Solo" at that time the plan for a coup d'état in the event that the Italian Eurocommunists would join the government . There are different statements about a possible involvement of Walter in the plans. Witnesses testified that at a meeting at the US embassy, ​​Walters proposed the use of American troops in support of the coup. There was also direct evidence of the involvement of the NATO / CIA secret organization Gladio and the Catholic, right-wing extremist and mafia- related underground movement around the secret lodge Propaganda Due . Investigation files from 1967, which were released in 1991, confirm the plans and mention early information to US diplomats, but contradict the thesis that American authorities and Walters were involved in the preparations or were involved in the content at all.

Brasilia

At the end of 1962, Walters was transferred back to Brazil and took the position of military attaché at the US embassy in Brasília . President John F. Kennedy had personally nominated him for the post at the suggestion of Ambassador Lincoln Gordon and White House foreign policy advisor Richard Goodwin. Ambassador Gordon officially gave him the order on the first day:

I expect three things from you: first, I want to know what is going on in the armed forces; second, through you, I want to have some influence over them; and thirdly - that's the most important thing - spare me surprises!

Then he gave Walter background information on the developing Cuban Missile Crisis .

At this point Walters was already under observation by the Eastern intelligence services. A communist newspaper in Brazil welcomed him as the “chief specialist of the Pentagon on military coups ” and brought him into connection with the coup against King Faruq of Egypt in 1952, President Arturo Frondizi in Argentina and President Manuel Prado y Ugarteche in Peru in 1962. His mandate was to " overthrow President João Goulart and replace it with a puppet government of the USA" Walters denied the allegations and pointed out that the Brazilian people were too proud to accept the interference of a foreigner.

Walter's contacts with the Brazilian military were excellent. Thirteen officers alone, whom he knew personally from his time in Italy, had meanwhile risen to become generals. The Army Chief of Staff, General Humberto Castelo Branco, and the Head of Military Intelligence, General Golbery do Couto e Silva, were close personal friends .

The domestic political situation in Brazil deteriorated significantly over the next few years. Social tensions arose from the social imbalance between small farmers and the landless versus latifundistas ( large landowners ). The USA and Walters saw communist influences at work everywhere, which threatened their interests, especially in the country's raw materials. After Kennedy's death, the CIA was authorized by his successor Lyndon B. Johnson to promote an anti-communist movement among the rural population. Land reform at the expense of the large landowners and the transfer of some ultra-conservative officers from the General Staff to unimportant posts sparked fears of a “second Cuba” or “second China” in Washington, conservative circles and in the military.

At Easter 1964, generals staged a coup against President Goulart. General Castelo Branco was appointed as the new president after a short transition period. In the event of a civil war, the USA had already provided a task force of the US Marines , a tanker with tank and aircraft fuel and an airplane with ammunition deliveries in the run-up to the coup . Walters claimed in a hearing before the Church Committee of the US Congress in 1975 that, although a military attaché, he was unaware of these preparations. According to documents later released, this statement was an open lie. He reported to Washington on March 30, 1964 that he had met with the conspirators that night and that the coup was awaiting a signal that would be expected the same week. The report shows that Walters was fully involved in the preparations for the coup. He knew the communication between the conspirators in the high command and the units and was informed of who would react and under what circumstances.

Paris

In 1967 Walters was to be transferred back to Europe, this time as a military attaché in France. The US Vietnam War escalated in the course of 1966, so relations with the former colonial rulers of Indochina were of fundamental importance. In preparation, Walters went to Saigon for four weeks to gain first-hand impressions of what is now his fourth war. In retrospect, he called Vietnam "one of the noblest and most selfless wars" the United States has ever waged. When he arrived in Paris, his first task was to obtain all possible information about Vietnamese officers, weapons, military installations and other facilities from the French military. His acquaintance with President Charles de Gaulle and Georges Pompidou from the Second World War and his previous stays in Paris made his tasks easier for him, despite France's withdrawal from the military structure of NATO in 1966.

In August 1969, Henry Kissinger , special envoy for the new US President Richard Nixon , established Walters as communications leader for secret negotiations with the government of North Vietnam over the Paris embassies. Walters Kissinger smuggled fifteen times into the country only with the knowledge of President Pompidou, spoke many times directly to Lê Đức Thọ and later also to the representatives of China about the war in Asia. Using the channels established with his help, Kissinger finally negotiated the withdrawal of the Americans from Vietnam in 1973.

In addition to his regular and secret duties in Paris, Nixon used Walters as a special envoy. In 1971 he sent him on an unofficial visit to the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco to discuss plans for a transition to democracy after Franco's death.

Walters also accompanied President Nixon as a consultant and interpreter on state visits to various European countries. About Walter's quality as a translator, Charles de Gaulle said to Nixon at the time: "You gave a brilliant speech, but your interpreter was eloquent."

Vernon A. Walters as Deputy Director of the
CIA in 1972
Emblem of the CIA in the entrance to the headquarters in Langley, Virginia
Lieutenant General Vernon A Walters (second from left) at a meeting of the Military Intelligence Board ( MIB
) in 1973

Deputy Director of the CIA

In early May 1972, Walters was appointed Deputy Director of Central Intelligence (DDCI) by President Nixon . As such, he was the operational head of the Central Intelligence Agency (while the director holds a political position). Although Walters, as a member of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), was previously not a member of the CIA, he had sufficiently close relationships to take over the leadership.

While in Europe the Cold War and the threat from the Soviet Union were increasingly perceived as less urgent in the 1970s, the real or feared conflicts between the superpowers shifted to other parts of the world. In Washington and Langley , Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa were identified as the battlefields. Critics accuse US foreign policy, and in particular the intelligence services, of having " black and white thinking " and of subordinating democratic values ​​and human rights to the fight against communism.

Walter's first crisis, however, took place in his own country. On June 17, 1972, five people were arrested while breaking into the headquarters of the Democratic Party in the Washington "Watergate Hotel", who turned out to be employees of the Nixon campaign team. One of them was also on the CIA payroll. As the FBI investigation gradually drew closer to the intruders' connections and threatened to reveal the explosive nature of the Watergate affair , Nixon's adviser Harry Robbins Haldeman proposed to the President in June 1972 that Walters be ordered to stop the FBI and Nixon agreed to that.

Nixon's advisors, John Ehrlichman and Haldeman, discussed with Walters that the CIA should ask the FBI to stop the investigation with any evidence of secret state interests. While Walters spent a few days trying to uncover the facts, he actually tried to slow down the FBI. However, according to his own statements, he was soon convinced that there were no state secrets to protect, and he had a personal share in the fact that the CIA subsequently stayed out of the affair. Nixon felt betrayed by the CIA. The tape recording of the conversation between Haldemann and Nixon was published as a transcript in August 1973 as part of the investigation . Called the Smoking Gun , it was seen as irrefutable evidence of the agency's misuse for political purposes. The president had no choice but to resign three days later.

The next few years were among the turbulent times for the CIA. In addition to various actions abroad, the investigations into the Watergate affair revealed further scandals of the US intelligence services CIA and FBI and led for the first time to detailed investigations of the secret service activities by the Church Committee of the US Congress . Walters was the constant factor when, within a few years, four different directors took over the political leadership of the CIA - from July to September 1973 he was director of Central Intelligence himself because the position was vacant.

In mid-1973, American diplomats were taken hostage and murdered in Lebanon , prompting Walters to travel to Morocco for secret negotiations with Ali Hassan Salameh as the representative of the PLO .

Walter's personal responsibility at this time is difficult to assess, files are only partially released and he is silent in his memoirs. Based on his previous activities, however, it can be assumed that he was particularly committed to covert operations in Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries. And it is precisely these regions that became the special focus of the CIA during Walter's tenure.

In September 1973 the “ Project FUBELT ” of the CIA came to an end: under the leadership of General Augusto Pinochet , the army in Chile launched a coup against President Salvador Allende . Its overthrow had been planned by the US since its election in 1970 and promoted through a combination of economic pressure and direct support of the generals by the DIA and CIA. Shortly after Allende was overthrown, Kissinger said that they (the USA) had not done it (themselves), but had created the greatest possible conditions.

In 1974 the Carnation Revolution in Portugal overthrew the remnants of the Salazar dictatorship: the CIA, with intensive German participation, immediately coordinated massive support for the left-wing democratic forces under Mário Soares against more radical communists. Several million marks from funds from the CIA and the BND flowed into the country through the party-affiliated foundations of the SPD and CDU .

3 star General Vernon A. Walters 1976

In the following year the CIA intensified its engagement in sub-Saharan Africa . In response to the revolution in Portugal, Angola gained independence in November 1975 and immediately a proxy war broke out between the US and the Soviet Union. The United States and South Africa supported the UNITA of Jonas Savimbi against the Marxist MPLA , on their side up to 50,000 Cuban soldiers fought.

At the end of 1975 the " Operation Condor " was founded for the cooperation of the secret services from six Latin American states, which were ruled by military dictatorships . The CIA supported the participating services technically and logistically and organized training courses in the School of the Americas . The focus of the cooperation was the persecution of real or alleged opponents of the regime in Latin America and internationally. The suspects, who were often left-wing politically but not entirely, were monitored, pursued and murdered across borders, in the case of Chilean diplomat and ex-foreign minister Orlando Letelier even with a car bomb in Washington, DC

In March 1976, generals, some of whom had been trained by the USA and were affiliated with the CIA , carried out a coup in Argentina . They established a reign of terror with 2,300 demonstrably murdered, around 10,000 arrested and 20,000 to 30,000 disappeared without any trace of evidence . The effective legal processing of these crimes only began in many of the countries in the 21st century .

Although Walters was close to the Republican Party as an anti-communist , he stressed that he had served under presidents of both US parties. Nevertheless, when the victory of the Democrat Jimmy Carter was foreseeable in the course of 1976, he not only resigned from the leadership position in the CIA, but also with the rank of 3-star general ( Lieutenant General ) from the US Army and took advantage of it his experience and connections as a business consultant and author. He also taught irregularly at the School of the Americas .

Special envoy under Reagan

In late 1980, President Jimmy Carter was voted out of office after only one term. His successor Ronald Reagan asked Walters for a first secret mission before he took office, appointed him special ambassador in early 1981 and made him his international troubleshooter .

Walter's role was global. On behalf of Reagan, he traveled around the world, delivered diplomatic grades , negotiated in crises, expanded personal relationships and brought hostages back to the USA.

He was happy to travel to the country of destination a day or two before the agreed date, use public transport and chat with bus drivers in order to capture the mood among the population. On other occasions he bet on the greatest possible effect and flew a special machine from the US State Department to convey the importance of his concern to the hosts. According to his own statements, he only traveled under his real name.

Even when dealing with difficult negotiating partners, he always kept his style. A flexible negotiator who instinctively assesses his interlocutor and, if necessary, also addresses them unconventionally. In 1984 he visited the “ kleptocrat ” President Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire twice , in order to persuade him to undertake economic reforms and debt repayment within the framework of the “ Paris Club ” as well as to further support UNITA in neighboring Angola. Walters flattered the eccentric Mobutu so much that US Ambassador Grove feared the worst for continued collaboration, but Walters had caught the mood of Mobutu and was successful. Walters later explained to the ambassador: "Anyone who thinks flattery won't work has never been flattered."

Two main topics preoccupied Walters during this time: firstly, the civil war in Nicaragua , in which the USA sided with the contra rebels against the Sandinistas of the elected President Daniel Ortega . After the US Congress had banned further support for the Contras with the Boland Amendment , the White House developed an illegal continuation of the promotion, financed, among other things, by secret and illegal arms deals with Iran . The resulting Iran-Contra affair became the biggest scandal of the Reagan administration in 1986.

Second, he wanted to support the illegal trade union movement Solidarność in Poland . The committed Catholic Walters organized the cooperation of the USA with Pope John Paul II to promote underground work during the duration of martial law from December 1981. He also asked the Pope for support in American domestic politics: in 1982 the bishops of the Catholic Church spoke in the United States against nuclear armament and demanded a unilateral renunciation of any use against civilian targets. After Walter and Secretary of State George Shultz asked the Pope at the end of the year to act moderately on the bishops, the speakers of the US Bishops' Conference were summoned to Rome, where the Prefect of the Doctrine of the Faith , Joseph Ratzinger , told them they were not entitled to make such statements. The influence was in vain, in February 1983 the bishops sided with the freeze movement and demanded a freeze of nuclear armament in a pastoral letter .

He also traveled repeatedly to Latin America. One of his first trips took him to Guatemala , where civil war had raged for 30 years and the USA supported the constantly changing military governments with weapons and money. Walters negotiated with General Fernando Garcia in 1981 before a CIA-backed coup in 1982 brought Efrain Ríos Montt to power. Here, too, the military dictatorship brutalized itself in the fight against the rural population, which hardly changed anything about the massive US support for the government .

In early 1982, Walters and US Secretary of State Alexander Haig commuted between Washington and Buenos Aires to prevent the outbreak of the Falklands War .

In March 1982, President Reagan sent Walters to the Cuban President Fidel Castro to make him an offer to normalize relations if Cuba renounces support for communist movements in Latin America and allows political reforms in its own country. As expected, Castro decidedly refused.

Since 1980 the USA has supported the mujahideen in Afghanistan , which has been occupied by the Soviet Union since 1979 . Walters was involved in the expansion of American cooperation with Pakistan , during which the Pakistani intelligence service ISI was established, which in later years promoted the development of the Taliban from the Islamist wing of the mujahideen.

In 1983 the Islamic Jihad carried out a devastating attack on the US Marines barracks in Beirut , which prompted Walters to make extensive visits to the region.

Walters in the Reagan Cabinet (back row, third from right)

Ambassador to the United Nations

In February 1985, President Reagan appointed Walters as Ambassador to the United Nations in New York , a position that was then in the President's Cabinet . This did not end his intensive travel activity, but instead made it his style, whenever possible, to clarify important questions and conflicts with the respective local government. From 1981 to 1989 he toured 142 of the then 159 member states of the UN.

Walters gained public attention when he defended the US air raids on Libya ( Operation El Dorado Canyon ) in retaliation for a bomb attack in Berlin in 1986 before the UN .

Another focus of his activity was the

  • Monitoring the arms control treaties with the Soviet Union,
  • Negotiations in the hostage crises of 1985 in Lebanon ,
  • International cooperation in the " war on drugs ",
  • Negotiations on the 1988 armistice in the First Gulf War between Iraq and Iran ,
  • Elections in preparation for the independence of Namibia from the occupation of South Africa and the
  • international observation of the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan.

Unlike his predecessors, Walters appeared in the American public as an advocate of the United Nations and thus had a role in the US abandoning the financial boycott against the UN.

Walters in conversation with Wolfgang Schäuble , 1991

Ambassador to Germany

In early 1989 George HW Bush was sworn in as President of the United States, who was Director of the CIA in 1976 and Vice President and Coordinator of Foreign Policy under Reagan Walter's superior from 1981 to 1988. He sent Walters to Bonn as the US Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany .

According to his recollections, the position was not intended as a quiet post. Foreign Minister-designate James Baker offered him the position with the words "It will be all about it" because changes in the Eastern Bloc were foreseeable since Gorbachev's inauguration and the US embassy in Bonn has traditionally been a leader in both politics and intelligence Relations with the Eastern European satellite states .

Walters states in his memoirs that he not only recognized the collapse of the GDR, but also the possibility of a quick reunification much earlier than his superiors in Washington, than the German government and especially Moscow. On September 4, 1989, his remarks made a headline in the International Herald Tribune, "Walters: German Unity Soon" . The opening of the “ Wall ” on November 9, 1989 did not particularly surprise him. The next morning he organized a plane for Chancellor Helmut Kohl so that he could come to Berlin, was there himself and inspected the situation from a helicopter before he drove to the Glienicke Bridge and spoke to East and West Germans there.

In the months that followed, Walters conducted many negotiations for his government within the framework of German reunification , especially in preparation for the two-plus-four treaty . About the role of Germany, he said:

Germans have learned the lesson of history and will do their part to keep the world free from fear and aggression.

Bonn was Walters' last post in the service of the United States. In June 1991 he announced his retirement. After leaving the diplomatic service, he went public as a speaker and author. Walters died in West Palm Beach , Florida in February 2002 at the age of 85 and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Awards

Vernon A. Walters was a recipient of the Army Distinguished Service Medal with two Oak Leaf Clusters and the Legion of Honor , was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bush in 1991 and was inducted into the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame . He was also the recipient of the Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and several war awards from allied nations. In 1991 he was honored with the Lucius D. Clay Medal . Walters was granted honorary citizenship of the city of Neu-Ulm in 1991 on behalf of the soldiers of the US garrison since the end of the war and for his negotiations during their withdrawal .

The German association Atlantik-Brücke presented the Vernon A. Walters Award to a German or American personality "in recognition of their outstanding service to German-American relations".

Quotes

  • I am not sent when success is likely. One of my main tasks is to give the final unction just before the patient dies. - Vernon A. Walters, 1989
  • There will be human rights issues with the governments of Mars and the Moon in 3000. There are some problems that will never be solved. - Vernon A. Walters, 1981 in Guatemala, asked about the particular brutality of the Guatemalan regime.
  • My belief that the United States is the only real chance for freedom to survive in this world. - Vernon A. Walters, 1991 after 50 years in the service of the USA, when asked what motivates him.
  • He was great as our James Bond. - Winston Lord , President of the Council on Foreign Relations, on Walter's role in the secret talks with North Vietnam.

Publications

  • In a confidential mission (original title: Silent Mission. Translated by Hans-Ulrich Seebohm). Bechtle, Esslingen 1990, ISBN 3-7628-0490-7 . (American original 1978) (autobiography until 1976)
  • The union was predictable. translated by Helmut Ettinger. Siedler, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-88680-529-8 . (about the time as ambassador in Germany)

literature

  • Klaus Eichner, Ernst Langrock: The mastermind. Vernon Walters - a Cold War intelligence general. Kai Homilius Verlag , Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-89706-877-X . (one-page biography penned by an ex-Stasi officer)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. George W. Ruttler: Cloud of Witnesses: Vernon A. Walters ( Memento February 4, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), in: Crises Magazine , February 2005.
  2. Cameron R. Hume: The United Nations, Iran, and Iraq: How Peacemaking Changed, Indiana University Press 1994, ISBN 0-253-32874-8 , p. 93.
  3. Vernon Anthony Walters: Silent Missions. Doubleday Publishing, 1978, ISBN 0-385-13500-9 , p. 127.
  4. ^ New York Times: Fritz Kraemer, 95, Tutor to US Generals and Kissinger, Dies , November 19, 2003
  5. Bruce Cummings: Napalm on North Korea . In: Le Monde diplomatique , December 10, 2004 (accessed August 19, 2009).
  6. ^ Spencer M. Di Scala: Renewing Italian Socialism . Oxford University Press 1988, ISBN 0195363965 , p. 153
  7. ^ Daniele Ganser : NATO's secret armies - Operation Gladio and terrorism in Western Europe. Cass, London 2005, ISBN 0-7146-5607-0 , p. 71.
  8. ^ Associated Press: Twenty-Six Years Later, Details of Planned Rightist Coup Emerge , Jan. 5, 1991
  9. George Washington University - National Security Archive: Brazil Marks 50th Anniversary of Military Coup , April 2, 2014 and transcript of the conversation in the Oval Office on July 30, 1962 .
  10. Walters 1990, p. 255.
  11. Walters 1990, p. 256.
  12. George Washington University - National Security Archive, Report by Vernon A. Walters to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, March 30, 1964 .
  13. ^ New York Times, MAN IN THE NEWS; WALTERS, LONGTIME DIPLOMAT, GETS KIRKPATRICK POST AT UN February 9, 1985, p. 1.
  14. ^ Obituary for Walters from the CIA website.
  15. Help from the Red Prince. In: Der Spiegel . 41/2001, p. 195.
  16. Kissinger's telephone conversation with Nixon on September 16, 1973 - transcript (PDF; 72 kB) in the National Security Archive of George Washington University .
  17. Brandon Grove: Behind Embassy Walls. University of Missouri Press, Columbia 2005, ISBN 0-8262-1573-4 , p. 274.
  18. America's bishops: No to nuclear armament. In: Der Spiegel. 19/1983, p. 121.
  19. ^ New man on the East River . In: The time. April 5th 1985.
  20. Ulrich Schiller: An expert with a broad chest . In: The time. January 13, 1989.
  21. Walters 1994, p. 19.
  22. Walters 1994, p. 192.
  23. atlantik-bruecke.org ( Memento from August 7, 2008 in the Internet Archive ).
  24. A globetrotter. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. January 10, 1989, p. 10.
  25. Right guy. In: Der Spiegel. 17/1989, p. 156.
  26. ^ A b Obituary for Walters in: New York Times. February 15, 2002, p. C 15.
predecessor Office successor
Richard Burt US Ambassador to Germany
April 24, 1989 to August 18, 1991
Robert M. Kimmitt
This article was added to the list of excellent articles on February 11, 2006 in this version .