Smith, Walter Bedell

Walter Bedell Smith, 1946
By courtesy of the U.S. Army
(b. Oct. 5, 1895, Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.--d. Aug. 9, 1961, Washington, D.C.), U.S. Army general, diplomat, and administrator, who served as chief of staff for U.S. forces in Europe during World War II.
Smith began his military career as an enlisted man in the Indiana National Guard (1910-15) and in 1917 was commissioned a second lieutenant of infantry in the U.S. Army. He fought briefly in World War I, and, advancing through grades, he served in the U.S. and the Philippines and taught in the infantry school. In February 1942 he was named secretary of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and U.S. secretary of the Combined Chiefs of Staff, with the rank of brigadier general. The following September he became chief of staff, European theatre of operations, and chief of staff to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, serving in those posts until Eisenhower's departure from Europe after the war. He negotiated and accepted for the Allies the surrender of Italy (1943) and of Germany (1945).

On returning to the U.S. in 1945, Smith became chief of the operations and planning division of the war department general staff. Shortly afterward he was appointed U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, holding that post from 1946 to 1949. Later he commanded the U.S. 1st Army (1949-50) and was director of the Central Intelligence Agency (1950-53), becoming general in 1951. He retired in 1953 to become undersecretary of state. In October 1954 he resigned from government service and entered private business. He was the author of My Three Years in Moscow (also published as Moscow Mission, 1946-1949,1950) and Eisenhower's Six Great Decisions (1956).

BIBLIOGRAPHY. D.K.R. Crosswell, The Chief of Staff: The Military Career of General Walter Bedell Smith (1991), covers his career through 1945. Ludwell Lee Montague, General Walter Bedell Smith as Director of Central Intelligence, October 1950-February 1953 (1992), discusses Smith's role in the founding of the CIA.