John McCone
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John Alexander McCone (January 4, 1902 - February 14, 1991) was an American businessman and politician who served as Director of Central Intelligence during the height of the Cold War.
McCone was born in San Francisco, California, and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1922 with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. A prominent industrialist, McCone also served for more than twenty years as a governmental advisor and official. Most importantly, he was chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (1958 - 1961) and Director of Central Intelligence (CIA) (1961 - 1965).
He was a key player in John F. Kennedy's strong stand against the Soviet Union in the Cuban Missile Crisis, although he was the lone Republican on the National Security Council. In the Honeymoon telegram of September 20, 1962, he insisted that the CIA remain imaginative when it came to Soviet weapons policy towards Cuba, as a September 19 assessment had concluded it unlikely that nuclear missiles would be placed on the island. (The telegram was so named because McCone sent it while on his honeymoon in Paris, France, accompanied not only by his bride, but by a CIA cypher team as well.)
McCone's suspicions of the inaccuracy of this assessment proved to be correct, as it was later found out the Soviet Union had followed up its conventional military build up with the installation of 3 megaton Nuclear Weapons, coupled with MRBM's (Medium Range Ballistic Missiles) and IRBM's (Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles), sparking off the crisis in October when they were later spotted by Lockheed U-2 Surveillance Flights.
McCone resigned from his position of DCI in April 1965, correctly believing himself to be unappreciated by President Johnson. Upon his resignation, McCone submitted a final policy memorandum to Johnson arguing that Johnson's expansion of the war in Vietnam would arouse national and world discontent over the war before it brought down the North Vietnamese regime.
Throughout his career, McCone served on numerous commissions that made recommendations on issues as diverse as civilian applications of military technology and the Watts riots. (See Violence in the City -- An End or a Beginning?: A Report by the Governor's Commission on the Los Angeles Riots.)
[edit] References
McCartney, Laton. Friends in High Places: The Bechtel Story, The Most Secret Corporation and How It Engineered the World. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988.
Andrew, Christopher. For the Presidents Eye's Only. New York: Harper Perennial, 1995. ch. 7-8, +pgs 321-322
Violence in the City -- An End or a Beginning?, A Report by the Governor's Commission on the Los Angeles Riots, 1965, John McCone, Chairman, Warren M. Christopher, Vice Chairman. Official Report online\
[edit] See also
| Preceded by Lewis Strauss |
Chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission 1958–1960 |
Succeeded by Glenn T. Seaborg |
| Preceded by Allen W. Dulles |
Director of Central Intelligence November 29, 1961 - April 28, 1965 |
Succeeded by Vice Adm. William Raborn |
| Directors of the Central Intelligence Agency |  |
|---|---|
| Souers • Vandenberg • Hillenkoetter • Smith • Dulles • McCone • Raborn • Helms • Schlesinger • Colby • Bush • Turner • Casey • Webster • Gates • Woolsey • Deutch • Tenet • Goss • Hayden |
