I met and spoke to Vessey in the middle of the night in the Pentagon Intelligence Command Center. It was during the 1985 Athens TWA highjacking. My job was to take telex off the printers and hang them on clipboards by topic on a wall. I was told to not let anyone except the battle Staff touch them because the analysts would still sometimes take them back to their desks to read. I would xerox them if they wanted a copy, but no one could touch them. Written warnings were in big letters on the wall. My job was to be there and ensure that order was obeyed.
Gen Vessey was in his civvies reading them. He took one down so I proceeded to tell him to put the fn thing back. He did! Then the Colonel who ran the battle Staff told me who I just yelled at was. Vessey was cool, though. I apologized and said I didn’t know. He said, “No problem, sergeant glad to see you doing your job!”
Fascinating story. Vessey was a mustang officer, getting a battlefield promotion from first sergeant in 1943. It would be interesting to have a time machine where you could switch the WWII vet Joint Chiefs with modern-day ones and see what happens.