Serial Fibber Brian Williams: JFK Served Under General Eisenhower in WWII

Newsbusters ^ | October 15, 2018 | P.J. Gladnick

[PJ-Comix]

Serial fibber Brian Williams told yet another whopper on Friday night from his home in MSNBC exile known as The 11th Hour with Brian Williams. So what else is new? What makes his latest historical untruth ironically special is it came as Williams along with historian Michael Beschloss were fact checking President Donald Trump for a supposed error he made during his speech at a rally in Lebanon, Ohio on Friday.

For years following the Civil War, many historians as well as much of the public in general discounted the military abilities of General Ulysses S. Grant by claiming he was able to accomplish his victories primarily due to the overwhelming men and material of the North as well as being willing to expend both in a more than necessary manner on the battlefield. So when Trump mentioned in his speech that Grant is finally being respected as a great general as has happened, this set both Brian Williams and Beschloss off in snark mode.

[Midnitethecat]

Thanks for the laugh!

[JBW1949]

i thought Ballsy Ford was raping Brian Williams with a beanbag chair???????

[jmacusa]

They were under the command, obviously of the Commander In Chief, that being the President. In theater they came under the command of The Department of The Navy. Who I believe was Admiral Ernest King.

[pepsi_junkie]

Douglas Macarthur was Supreme Allied Commander in the Pacific theater.

[Hatteras]

"who was over the PT boats ???"

Captain Binghamton?

[Little Ray]

That’s right!
JFK carried General Washington and his staff away from his disastrous defeats on Long Island in PT-109, before was run down by a British man-o-war in while serving in a squadron with John Paul Jones.

[jmacusa]

“McHale, you and your pirates!! LOL!

[PAR35]

The PT operations were run out of Tulagi, which was in Nimitz’s Area.

[RetiredArmy]

I didn’t know Ike was commander of the PT boat flotilla in WWII!!! Wow, all those history books I read were wrong. Man.

[pepsi_junkie]

Interesting. I thought Macarthur had it all but more or less left the Navy autonomous since he didn’t really care about them so much.

[SaveFerris]

On a side note: JFK was dating a gal (when she was married) who was Hitler's girlfriend at the 1936 Olympics at one point. Inga Arvad.

Hat tip to Sjackson.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inga_Arvad

Romance with John F. Kennedy and FBI investigation

In November 1941, while John F. Kennedy served as an ensign in the US Navy's Office of Naval Intelligence, he and Arvad began a romantic relationship.[4] Arvad was already being followed by the FBI due to the fact she was a resident alien and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had concerns that she was a German spy, as well as for previously being photographed meeting Hitler. When the FBI discovered that the "ensign Jack" who had been visiting Arvad was, in fact, a Kennedy, they extended their investigation through wiretaps.[6] There was no evidence found to show Arvad, who was married, guilty of "any wrongdoing". But that did not deter Hoover's FBI from the continued use of listening devices when Arvad and Kennedy were together.[9]

Kennedy's superior officer at the time, Captain Seymour A. D. Hunter, was quoted as saying that the U.S. Navy looked at Arvad as similar to Mata Hari. They thought she was using Kennedy to find out all she could about what was going on in the Navy Department. Captain Howard Klingman, then assistant director of the Office of Naval Intelligence, called Hunter into his office. Hunter was told that Kennedy needed to be put out of the Navy. Hunter pointed out that the situation was delicate because of Joseph P. Kennedy's having been United States Ambassador to England. However, he believed the young naval intelligence officer was not privy to information that would be "more than a bit embarrassing". Hunter advised that Kennedy be transferred to a seagoing unit.[3]

Kennedy was reassigned to a desk job in South Carolina in January 1942, and the relationship with Arvad ended after a few brief encounters. Kennedy later stated he thought Hoover might have had something to do with his transfer.[10] Kennedy and Arvad knew they were being followed, and in the FBI transcripts of their encounters they sometimes spoke to "whoever is listening".[citation needed] In the end, Inga reflected on her time with Kennedy as a "passing affair".[11]

[RinaseaofDs]

It’s like saying I served under Ronald Reagan. He was CINC, and I was an Ensign in the USCG.

[sharkhawk]

Nimitz and mcarthur both had areas of responsibility. Nimitz was CINCPAC MacArthur SWPOA they were on the same level

[equaviator]

For the Navy I believe it was Admiral King.

[OldCorps]

General Washington is considered by the Army to be the most senior general.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_officers_in_the_United_States

[Sans-Culotte]

Grant was a great General.

He was. I tend to think Lee was the greatest commander of the war because he did so much with so little. However, one reason Lee had that one great year of victories was that all the Union commanders before Grant (and Meade) would retreat even though they outnumbered the Confederates in men and materiel.

[dpetty121263]

Well technically he is somewhat correct as JFK’s oldest brotherJoe Kennedy served on the ETO and was killed in a secret mission taking off a remote controlled war weary B-24 loaded with high explosives exploded just after take off...

[SunkenCiv]

JFK wasn't in the same command chain, but was obviously outranked by Ike.

[StoneRainbow68]

Right, but I was just thinking who the top Navy guy in the Pacific was - the equivalent of Eisenhower.

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

Probably Nimitz, but he shared command with McCarthur so who knows.

He would have been correct if he had stepped up a notch to Marshall. Marshall owned the whole show.