Target, page 41
20 Both mentioned in the Gay statement.
21 Brian M. Sobel, The Fighting Pattons (Dell, 1997), 79.
22 Peter J.K. Hendrikx, “An Ironical Thing,” Patton Appreciation Society Newsletter, UK, December 1995.
23 The article is in an undated New Jersey newspaper story about the crash. “In an INS dispatch,” it says, “Sgt Armando DeCrescenzo, of George Road, Cliffside Park... and three other soldiers rushed to the scene and gave treatment to the general . . . .” This meshes with Woodring’s statement in Fighting Pattons about the first “ambulance.”
24 “The End of the Ride,” Denver Fugate
25 Last Days, 227.
26 An MP headquarters that records show did exist.
27 See Woodring’s interviews in the articles by Hendrikx, Fugate, and Shelton.
28 Obtained from Old Dominion.
29 “18 December 1945” memorandum by “Brig. Gen. John M. Willems,” Seventh Army Chief of Staff, in whose jurisdiction the accident took place. Its subject is “Accident investigation” and is addressed to “Provost Marshal.” It says information on the Patton accident came from a report signed by 1Lt. Peter Sabalas (sic) of the 818th Military Police Company, Mannheim. Obviously the “S” is a mistake.
30 Last Days, 9-10.
31 United Press (UP) dispatch from Mannheim, dated December 10 (1945). No press have been reported at the scene so such stories were probably written from second hand reports.
32 Stars and Stripes Frankfurt bureau report, dated December 9.
33 Babalas’s biographical sketch in Old Dominion University, Norfolk’s, special collections section which has his papers, as well as news stories such as “Legislator ‘Upset’ by Landbank’s Rates,” The Virginian-Pilot, Sept. 19, 1990.
34 Ibid.
35 The book was co-written by former assistant Deputy FBI Director Anthony E. Daniels.
36 See Hendrikx and Shelton.
37 Originally published in Britain as The Oshawa Project.
38 In separate interviews.
39 I have a copy of the story given to me for other reasons by Bazata.
40 Since service numbers are much longer, the 7340 is either part of a service number or more likely a phone number.
41 On the 90th’s website.
42 Last Days, 278.
43 As his military record, eventually unearthed, would show.
44 The declassified document is a typewritten release from “Conklin, acting PRO Seventh Army” to “Information Room PRO USFET” giving Gen. Patton’s condition at the hospital the Thursday after the accident.
45 Last Days, 226-227.
46 Signed by Brig. Gen. M. Willems, it concerns the “Provost Marshal Accident Investigation” and is dated 18 December 1945.”
47 Kingsbury Smith, Camden, N.J. Courier-Post. It was Thompson’s hometown paper.
48 This deviation is also in Seventh Army Public Relations Officer documents quoting an alleged statement Woodring gave at the scene. But it does indicate changing details in his story as Woodring has retold it through the years.
49 The Fighting Pattons, 79.
50 See the Conklin PRO memo.
51 Ibid., 277.
52 When asked, neither the army nor the Post-Tribune could shed any new light on this.
Chapter Twelve: The Last Bullet
1 Ball states the time in a letter to Esther E. Rohlader, historian at Walter Reed Medical Center, who apparently requested his recollection for the Center’s records. The letter is dated October 19, 1964.
2 “12 December 1945 Case Summary of General George S. Patton Jr.” which is part of his medical records.
3 Hill’s recollection is in another letter addressed to Walter Reed Medical Center’s Rohlander. It’s dated October 21, 1964. Kent’s is in a book, A Doctor’s Memoirs of World War II, published in 1989.
4 This quote is widely attributed to Patton and can be found in, among other sources, Ladislas Farago, The Last Days of Patton (New York: Berkley, 1981), 233 and Robert H. Patton, The Pattons: A Personal History of an American Family (Brassey’s, 2004), 280.
5 The description of his injuries here is from a variety of notes written on hospital forms predominately by Dr. Hill upon Patton’s admittance. They are labeled variously “History of the Present Illness’,’ “Chief Complaint-Condition on Admission,” “Physical examination’,’ “Progress Notes’,’ and “Operation Report.” All are dated “9 Dec 1945.”
6 The description of Patton’s head wound comes from Hill’s memoir to Walter Reed historian Rohlander as well as several of the hospital forms already footnoted.
7 Last Days, 232.
8 “History of the Present Illness,” dated “9 December, 1945” and initialed by Hill. Names of the witnesses are not given.
9 I Was With Patton, 274 The italicized “ever” is Lande’s.
10 In terms of the available record.
11 Gerald T. Kent, M.D., A Doctor’s Memoirs of World War II (The Cobham and Hatherton Press, 1989), 88.
12 The summary I have is only one page long. There may be more pages to it that might have an author’s signature.
13 Hospital records.
14 Ibid.
15 The time is found in two of the hospital documents already cited and the place is in Last Days, 233.
16 This probably was Cobb, whom Gay writes in his memoir drove him to the hospital.
17 Letter from Hill to Walter Reed Historian Esther Rohlader, dated October 19, 1964.
18 A Doctor’s Memoirs of World War II, 90.
19 Hill letter to Rohlader.
20 Morphine sulphate shows up periodically on Patton’s day-to-day medical charts.
21 Last Days, 235-236.
22 Death of Patton, op. cit.
23 The story, datelined “Mannheim, Dec. 10 (UPI?)” and headlined “Both Drivers Called Careless in Auto Crash’,’ does not have a byline. Dr. Kent also discusses the guards outside Patton’s room.
24 Last Days, 252-253. The story is quite famous for it got the nurse in trouble. The fact was that Patton was not as hard a drinker as often portrayed, although certainly not a teetotaler.
25 This number is contained in a memoir by Dr. R. Glen Spurling, Patton’s chief neurosurgeon, which appears to be from where Farago obtained it. The memoir comes from a 30-page talk he gave approximately a year after treating Patton. He sent the speech to Mrs. Patton in August 1950, according to a letter that accompanies it.
26 Last Days, 252-253.
27 A packet of nine pages, including letters and memos, titled “Outgoing Classified Message,” dated variously 9 and 10 December 1945, with Col. Alfred D. Starbird listed as the “preparing” officer.
28 Last Days, 255.
29 Patton Diary, October 13, 1945.
30 Ibid., 17.
31 Ibid., 17-18.
32 Hospital records.
33 Last Days, 266.
34 Ibid., 265.
35 Cable to “Lt. Col. Michele De Bakey,” of later heart surgery fame, at the surgeon general’s office. It was marked “priority” and “restricted” and signed by Gen. Keyes.
36 Last Days, 265.
37 According to his medical records.
38 The “Certificate” is dated February 16, 1938, Fort Riley, Kansas.” Attached is his 1939 annual army physical which reiterates the same information.
39 The summary, handwritten on a hospital “Progress Notes” form is for “Patton” and says, “20 Dec Last night suddenly developed acute attack of dysnea with . . . ” The rest is unintelligible because of the poor quality of the copy.
40 Last Days, 268.
41 Ibid., 269.
42 “Progress Notes” for George S. Patton, “21 December, 1945. Summary.”
43 Last Days, 268.
44 Spurling in “Patton Bulletin No. 4,” one of the updates on Patton’s condition issued periodically by “Headquarters, U.S. Forces, European Theater, Public Relations Division.” This one was the final one issued after his death.
45 Spurling memoir. Phlebitis could have been an alternative cause.
46 Nurse’s Notes.
47 Last Days, 271.
48 “Progress Notes,” dated “21 December 1945.”
Chapter Thirteen: Murder by Truck
1 Form 52-1, The Adjutant General’s office, Washington, D. C., 24 December 1945.
2 “Progress Notes,” dated “21 December 1945” and signed by Dr. Hill.
3 Spurling memoir.
4 Ladislas Farago, The Last Days of Patton (New York: Berkley, 1981), 2.
5 Ibid.
6 Gen. James M. Gavin, On To Berlin (New York: Bantam, 1979), 296.
7 George Nicholas, “Murder No Shock To Spooks,” the Spotlight, October 15, 1979.
8 Conein, now dead, is known from Church Committee hearings as one of those involved in the assassination of South Vietnam premier Diem.
9 Safely dispersed with others.
10 The diagrams, hand drawn pictures each, are attached to both Dr. Ball and Dr. Hill’s remembrances composed for Walter Reed Hospital.
11 Judyth Sassoon, “Biochemical Assassination Weapons,” Encyclopedia of Intelligence, Gale Group, 2004. (http://www.espionageinfo.com/Ba-Bl/Biochemical-Assassination-Weapons.html.
12 John Barron, KGB: The Secret Work of Soviet Secret Agents (Bantam Books, 1974), 419.
13 CIA memorandum entitled “Soviet Use of Assassination and Kidnapping”, prepared in February 1964 for the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy and declassified in 1971; obtained at the UCLA Library.
14 Richard Camellion, Assassination: Theory and Practice (Paladin Press, 1977), 139.
15 Robert Johnson, “A Study of Assassination,” appears to have been written as a graduate paper at Community University, Brooklyn N.Y. George Washington University National Security Archive.
16 Email response to my Military advertisement. Col. Roush, a current outdoors and military writer, said he had been near the Patton accident when it had occurred “but had no firsthand knowledge. We were all appalled to learn of the event.”
17 Conquest is one of the deans of Soviet watchers.
18 Pavel Sudoplatov and Anatoli Sudoplatov, with Jerrold L. and Leona P. Schecter; Special Tasks: The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness—A Soviet Spymaster (New York: Little Brown and Company, 1994), 252-253.
19 Ibid., 249.
20 Ibid., 270.
21 Stephen J. Skubik, Death: The Murder of General Patton; (Bennington: self published, 1993), 118.
22 Valentin M. Berezhkov, At Stalin’s Side: His Interpreter’s Memoirs From the October Revolution to the Fall of the Dictator’s Empire (New York: Birch Lane Press, 1994), 315-316.
23 Ibid., 316-318.
24 Don Isaac Levine, The Mind of an Assassin (New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1959). The Mind of an Assassin is the story of confessed Trotsky murderer Ramon Mercader, who used every subterfuge, including love and friendship, to gain access to Trotsky and then, when opportunity presented itself, plunge an ice-axe into his head. His mother, a devout Stalinist, put him up to it.
25 Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB (Basic Books, 1999).
26 Sword and Shield, 74-76.; John Barron, KGB: The Secret World of Soviet Secret Agents, (New York: Readers Digest Press distributed by E. P. Dutton & Co., 1974), 416 says the undercover NKVD aide was with Ledov in the hospital. Donald Rayfield, Stalin and His Hangmen: The Tyrant and Those Who Killed for Him (New York: Random House, 2004), 335, names the NKVD assassin.
27 “Murder No Shock to Spooks”; Last Hero, 721-727, 804-816. The Holohan case became a national sensation when first publicized in 1953. Time, among other magazines, ran continual stories about it.
28 Death: The Murder of General Patton, 44-46.
29 Ibid., 44, 118-120.
30 This is another of the vagaries of the accident scene. Without the reports to hopefully establish definite time lines, no one really can say conclusively who did what when. Skubik infers that there was an unnecessary delay, given Patton’s obvious serious condition, between Snyder’s arrival at the accident and the ambulance’s departure.
31 Death: The Murder of General Patton, 133-137.
32 Records obtained from the National Personnel Records Center, St. Louis, confirm this.
33 Skubik writes that he was given a Bronze Star which is not in his available military records.
34 Death: The Murder of General Patton, 47.
35 Ibid., 47-48
36 Death: The Murder of General Patton, 49.
37 While I was successful in locating many of those discussed in Skubik’s manuscript—or at least verifying their existence—my efforts to find Col. MacIntosh and Maj. Stone have been fruitless and it’s possible they are among the few names Skubik changed. However, Skubik’s family is very familiar with “Stoney” whom they say their father often talked about.
38 Death: The Murder of General Patton, 50-51.
39 Ibid., 51.
40 Ukrainian Weekly, obituary, “Stephen Skubik, consultant to Republican National Committee,” October 10, 1996.
41 Harriet Skubik Hanley, email to the author, August 18, 2004.
42 Assistant director of health policy development for a state’s health services department.
43 Death: The Murder of General Patton, Foreword and 52.
44 Stephen J. Skubik & Hal E. Short, Republican Humor. (Acropolis Books, 1976). Foreword by President Gerald Ford and Introduction by Vice President Nelson A. Rockefeller.
45 Harriet Skubik Hanley, email to the author, August 18, 2004.
46 Mark Skubik, emails to author, July, 20 2004 and August 24, 2005.
Chapter Fourteen: A Soldier, Not a Diplomat
1 Patton’s diaries from this time confirm this.
2 Robert Murphy, Diplomat Among Warriors (Pyramid Books, 1964), 174.
3 Thomas Fleming, The New Dealers’ War: F.D.R. and the War Within WWII (Basic Books, 2001), 190-191.
4 Diplomat Among Warriors, 173.
5 New Dealer’s War, 165-170.
6 Diplomat Among Warriors, 175-176.
7 Anthony Cave Brown, The Last Hero:Wild Bill Donovan (Vintage, 1984), 262.
8 Robin Winks, Cloak and Gown: Scholars in America’s Secret War (London: Collins Harvill, 1987), 183-184.
9 The Last Hero, 269.
10 Ibid., 270.
11 Stephen E. Ambrose, Ike’s Spies: Eisenhower and the Espionage Establishment (University of Mississippi Press, 1999) (originally published by Doubleday 1981), 54-55.
12 David Irving, The War between the Generals (Congdon & Weed, 1993).
13 Ibid., 14-15.
14 Ibid., 15.
15 February 3, 1943 letter, in The Patton Papers, 168.
16 Patton’s Diaries, February 5, 1943 entry, Library of Congress.
17 New Dealer’s War, 174.
18 Fred Ayer Jr., Before the Colors Fade (Dunwoody: Norman S. Berg, publisher, 1971), 209-210.
19 Diplomat Among Warriors, 261.
20 Allen Weinstein, and Alexander Vassiliev, The Haunted Wood (Modern Library, 2000), 23; Jerrold Schecter and Leona Schecter, Sacred Secrets: How Soviet Intelligence Operations Changed American History (Washington DC: Brassey’s, 2002), 156-160.
21 See the March 29, 1943 issue of Life magazine on the Soviet Union featuring a glowing centerpiece article by Davies for a glimpse of the distorted view Americans received. Donald Rayfield, Stalin and his Hangmen: The Tyrant and those who killed for him (New York: Random House, 2004). According Rayfield, Davies reported show-trial victims guilty when it was obvious to the world at large they were innocent. S.J. Taylor, Stalin’s Apologist (Oxford University Press, 1990).
22 Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB (Basic Books, 1999), 107; also Sacred Secrets, 156-160.
23 The Last Hero, 417.
24 Joseph E. Persico, Roosevelt’s Secret War: FDR and World War II Espionage (New York: Random House, 2001), 299-300.
25 Sword and Shield, 112. The authors cite Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (Simon and Schuster, 1995).
26 Diaries, The Patton Papers, 157.
27 The Patton Papers, 168.
28 A new book, M. Stanton Evans, Blacklisted By History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy (New York: Crown, 2007), director of the National Journalism Center and a former commentator for CBS, argues McCarthy has been wrongly vilified by the Left and stories used to impugn him are untrue.
29 Stephen J. Sniegoski, “The Reality of Red Subversion: The Recent Confirmation of Soviet Espionage in America,” The Occidental Quarterly Volume 3, Number 3. shows how large was the infiltration.
30 Pavel Sudoplatov and Anatoli Sudoplatov, with Jerrold L. and Leona P. Schecter; Special Tasks: The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness - A Soviet Spymaster, (New York: Little Brown and Company, 1994), 227.
31 Sword and Shield, 133
32 Sacred Secrets, 131
33 Jonah Goldberg, “Recovering Yalta,” National Review, May 11, 2005
34 Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindell, The Venona Secrets: Exposing Soviet Espionage and America’s Traitors (Washington DC: Regnery, 2000),153.; also Roosevelt’s Secret War, 374.
35 Harvey Klehr, “Spies Like Us,” The Weekly Standard, July 8, 2002.
36 Ibid.
37 Craig’s remark was made in an address at the International Spy Museum, Washington, D.C., broadcast on C-Span2 July 15, 2004.
38 Sword and Shield, 130. See the footnote as well.
39 The Last Hero, 438-442.
40 FBI message from “Boardman” via “Thornton” to “Director” marked “Urgent” and dated “June 30, 1953.” It can be found in Donovan’s file with the FBI.
41 Venona Secrets, 211-215.
42 See Sharing Secrets with Stalin, Sword and Shield, Special Tasks, and Sacred Secrets, each of which discusses this.
43 Haunted Wood, 14.
44 Ronn M. Platt, News & Observer, “Red Scare or Red Menace?” (Raleigh, NC) January 31, 1999.
