John Singlaub
 John Singlaub     (spook) | |
|---|---|
 Major General John K. Singlaub | |
| Born | 1921-07-10 Independence, California |
| Founder of | Western Goals Foundation, World League for Freedom and Democracy |
| Member of | Association of Former Intelligence Officers, Office of Strategic Services, Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, Western Goals Foundation |
Major General John Kirk Singlaub is a retired two-star general in the United States Army, founding member of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and a highly decorated former officer in the former Office of Strategic Services (OSS).
Career
After graduating from Van Nuys High School in 1939, he attended the University of California, Los Angeles. After graduation, he received a commission as a second lieutenant of infantry on January 14, 1943. As a member of Operation Jedburgh (Singlaub was part of the three man team codenamed "JAMES"), Singlaub parachuted behind German lines in August 1944 to work with the French Resistance fighters or Maquis groups that had swelled the resistance ranks after the D-Day invasion during World War II. Before the formal Japanese surrender, Singlaub parachuted onto Hainan Island, China, with eight other men under his command on August 27, 1945 to arrange the evacuation of the US, Australian, and Dutch prisoners of war held by the Japanese.
He headed CIA operations in postwar Manchuria, allied with the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek during the Chinese civil war, led troops in the Korean War, managed the secret war along the Ho Chi Minh trail in the Kingdom of Laos and Vietnam, worked with the Contras in Nicaragua, and Afghan mujahedin during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
In 1977, Singlaub was relieved from his position as Chief of Staff of U.S. forces in South Korea after criticizing President Jimmy Carter's proposal to withdraw U.S. troops from the Korean peninsula in an interview with the Washington Post. Less than a year later, Singlaub was forced to retire after publicly questioning President Carter's national security policies. In 1979, Singlaub founded the Western Goals Foundation, a private intelligence network that was implicated for supplying weapons to the Contras during the Iran–Contra affair.
After retiring from the army, Singlaub, with John Rees and Democratic Congressman from Georgia, Larry McDonald founded the Western Goals Foundation. According to The Spokesman-Review, it was intended to "blunt subversion, terrorism, and communism" by filling the gap "created by the disbanding of the House Un-American Activities Committee". Prior to the collapse of the Berlin Wall and Marxism–Leninism in the Soviet Union in 1991, Singlaub was founder in 1981 of the United States Council for World Freedom, the U.S. chapter of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). The chapter became involved with the Iran–Contra affair, with Associated Press reporting that, "Singlaub's private group became the public cover for the White House operation". The WACL was described by former member Geoffrey Stewart-Smith as allegedly a "largely a collection of Nazis, Fascists, anti-Semites, sellers of forgeries, vicious racialists, and corrupt self-seekers."
Active for 40 years in overt and covert operations, he had private and secret interviews with many military and government leaders worldwide. He personally knew William Casey, Director of Central Intelligence during the Reagan Administration, as well as Oliver North, and was involved in the Iran–Contra affair. Singlaub was President Reagan's administrative chief liaison in the Contra supply effort to oppose the Nicaraguan government and to support the dirty war in El Salvador.
Through his chairmanship of the world Anti-Communist League (WACL) and its U.S. chapter, the U.S. Council for World Freedom (USCWF), he enlisted Members of the US Congress from both political parties, Washington, D.C. policymakers, retired U.S. military officials, paramilitary groups, foreign governments, and American think tanks and conservatives in the Contra cause. He often met on Capitol Hill with members of the U.S. Congress, including Congressman Charlie Wilson (D-TX) about U.S. support and funding for the Contras and anti-communist mujahedin forces in Afghanistan after 1979.
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