(Joe Rochefort’s son Joseph Jr. and daughter Janet are awarded the Distinguished Service medal on behalf of their father by President Reagan in 1986).
It is Halloween, and I am being pulled in several directions simultaneously. I returned last night from Front Page, where Kristina behind the bar was wowing the Willow Refugees in her Audrey Hepburn costume, right out of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” She had a choker of pearls, black sheath dress and black opera gloves, and I think I speak for the group when I say that there was more than a little nostalgia for the last ten Halloweens we spent with the Willow gang.
Then, returning home and looking around for a bite to eat I found that last edible thing from Willow in the Freezer: one of Tracy’s exceptional chicken sandwiches. She said she learned how to make them at Wendy’s when she was just starting in the food and beverage trade and the food was still good at the chain. At least the Chicken was.
So that struck me as another in the “never agains” of this life, unless there are a couple of Kate Jansen’s Kemmelweck rolls crusted with fennel and sea-salt in the freezer down at the farm. Then, I realized I had not downloaded and edited the pictures from the Naval Intelligence Professionals Annual Fall Luncheon. There were huge doings at the gathering on the third floor in the Nimitz Ballroom, overlooking the Federal enclave across the Potomac.
I am accustomed to pumping up the organization and event since I am a booster, but I have to report honestly that there is a new sense of fellowship and common mission. There were a lot of folks in uniform, and the crowd was the largest ever with 110 paying attendants. Chairman Bob Murrett announced his departure, and his relief will be Tony Cothron, a dynamic officer who is going to do some great things. Norm Hayes will stay on as President, so the organization appears poised for a new burst of energy. Perhaps it is just me, but the emergence of the Corps of Information Dominance has made the intelligence folks seem to want to celebrate their heritage, and the organization appears to be a perfect vehicle for doing it. There is even talk about professionalizing the organization with a paid executive and even some compensation for generating content for the web site. Perhaps even a return to the hard copy publication of the NIP Quarterly.
Rear Admiral Matt Kohler talked about being the “Type Commander” for intelligence, a staff function that once only existed for the Aviators, Black Shoes and the Bubbleheads, so who knows. Maybe this will all work out after all. There is certainly a new spirit abroad in the land. I had a chance to congratulate RADM Liz Train on her nomination for a third star and assignment as the N2/N6, since that will mean we will have an actual intelligence officer as the Director of Naval Intelligence. Very cool development.
Which all happened in the ballroom named for Fleet Admiral Nimitz. I was going to tell the story about how Mac joined the fray after he retired from the Navy and joined the Central Intelligence Agency. I normally did not write about his time there, though we talked about it often. There are still some matters of sensitivity, but Mac was happy to talk to author and historian Elliott Carlson for the epilogue to his masterful work “Joe Rochefort’s War.”
I was going to pull in the notes and chronology that Mac had in his binder on the quest, but I am having IT problems and processing issues this morning, and want to get on down the road to the farm to enjoy the brisk Fall weather. So, with strict citation to Elliott Carlson, and with the recommendation to purchase his book “Joe Rochefort’s War” Naval Institute Press, 2011, I am going to close out the story of how Mac made the award of the DSM to Joe’s children possible:
And that is how Mac Showers and a bit of luck resolved the matter. Holding the original documents brought it all back with a raw power that was astonishing. I wrote a story about exactly that a few years back. Mac’s graduating class from Counterintelligence School got their orders by alphabetical order. The first half were shipped out to Manila, where they landed in time to be captured by the Imperial Japanese Army. Dumb luck spared Mac.
On arrival at Pearl, he failed the interview to be a field CI agent. The job would have been to be on the look-out for homosexuals, saboteurs and other undesirables on Hotel Street in downtown Honolulu and instead was thrown against a requirement at a mysterious command in the basement of the 14th Naval District Headquarters at the Shipyard.
That was The Dungeon, Commanded by Joe Rochefort. Mac worked for Jasper Holmes, sitting at the adjacent desk. The Hawaiian Sea Frontier people, the ones responsible for the defense of O’ahu, had no idea what went on down there, and kept pestering Mac to “get in the war and go to sea.” Mac was, after all, a Deck officer. In those days, the Submarine Service interviewed candidates for suitability by sending them on a combat patrol. Mac agreed to deploy with one of the more renowned Fleet Boat Commanders, Mush Morton, who was taking his USS Wahoo to the Sea of Japan. Jasper decided that Mac’s services were too important in January of 1943 to spare him from what was arguably the most important mission in the Pacific. I don’t have to tell you that Wahoo never came back. Dumb Luck.
Walking through the halls of Main Navy in Washington after the war was over, LT Showers ran into ADM Foresst Sherman, who he knew from the forward staff on Guam. Sherman liked Mac, and suggested he apply to be an intelligence officer. He pulled the strings to make it happen- all a result of a chance meeting in the corridor.
And much later, when enfant terrible Bud Zumwalt became Chief of Naval Operations and decided to purge all the flag officers senior to him, Mac retired and immediately became a special assistant to DCI Casey, where he could launch the third campaign to honor Joe Rochefort. It was just lucky a member of SECNAV John Lehman’s staff was at the Midway Roundtable to hear it.
The only thing is, I don’t believe in luck, at least not the dumb kind.
Do you?
Copyright 2015 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303