As usual, something, or some things, happened a while ago. They popped up again in the recent tumult of transport from Piedmont to population center. The Writer’s Section has embarked on a fairly major project to follow “The Last (Cold War) Cruise.” That account went to press last week. Dealing with the events of the 1989-90 USS Forrestal deployment to Homer’s Wine Dark Sea seemed like the end of one thing, but also the beginning of something quite different.

The end of the 47-year struggle naturally produced dramatic change in the former Soviet Union. But it also produced something dramatic here at home. That includes some old issues with effects we are only noticing now.

To clarify some of them, and how they came about, we have been talking to former Director of Naval Intelligence, RADM Thomas Aloysius Brooks. Tom had a long and distinguished active-duty career. But he also shared memories of his Father’s Naval service in New York with a unique Naval Reserve Intelligence organization that helped mold what we now term the national Intelligence Community (IC).

As part of building that story, we will attempt to cover the contributions of Naval Reserve Intelligence District 3-1. The Admiral’s Dad served there with distinction, and the Admiral has maintained contact through the years. We will recount some of the major events in New York City during World War Two. In the preliminary research, it has become apparent that members of that unit brought unique skills to the developing intelligence discipline that now includes 17 related governmental organizations. Those who served in NRID 3-1 had day jobs in the courts and police department of bustling New York City.

They brought those skills to augment the traditional Naval mission of port security and counter-intelligence. And they significantly enhanced a new mission area enhanced by technology: Operational Intelligence. Shortened to military jargon, OPINTEL provided a tool set that helped win a global struggle.

The tools that made up an operational capability for warfighting were among the spoils to be divided in the aftermath of conflict. The great Defense reorganization of 1947 was the product of great internal conflict, and the re-subordination of two Cabinet-level organizations as old as the Republic itself. And the establishment of a third, in the form of the establishment of an independent service wrenched from the War Department’s Army Air Corps to form the United States Air Force.

Before we dive into those matters, some background may help. Admiral Brooks introduced us years ago to RADM Donald “Mac” Showers and VADM Earl F. “Rex” Rectanus. Mac had initially sought to lecture us on violations of the staff code directed by ADM Chester Nimitz. Our offense? We used a disparaging term from World War One regarding General Douglas MacArthur. We used the nickname earned in his days in the trenches: “Dug-out Doug.”

The motivation for that will be discussed in the context of the larger story. But in brief, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Admiral Nimitz had command of the maritime campaign against Japan as the Pacific Fleet Commander. MacArthur had command of the ground component of the war against Japan. He also had a notoriously sensitive personality, and Nimitz wanted no additional trouble to complicate a desperate war. He directed his staff to never speak badly of MacArthur.

Our offense was against a staff directive then more than sixty years old. After a discussion with Mac at the famous Willow Restaurant, we agreed to be respectful to MacArthur’s memory in accordance with the desires of Admiral Nimitz. A friendship rose that we all enjoyed for a decade. The same general circumstances of history brought us to the attention of Vice Admiral Rectanus, and a similar relationship developed which resulted in a desire to tell their stories.

Our book “Cocktails With the Admiral” was published in 2020. It recounts our time with Mac Showers and his extraordinary life and times. Our intent had been to do the same for Rex, the first Intelligence Specialist to advance to three-star rank. But there was a third personality in the friendship who should be mentioned first because of her influence. Virginia Wheeler Martin was Rex’s companion then, and the most charming of the three octogenarians who helped shape our understanding of how their world worked.

Virginia preferred the more lively nick-name “Jinny.” With Mac and Rex, she helped change our perception of life itself. She did it in a uniquely feminine manner that helped us to understand the multiple impacts of war on society and all of humanity. We will shortly be talking about the separate streams of Mac and Rex’s experience in war and peace. But Jinny’s story and her influence lasted beyond Rex’s passing in 2009.

The subject of loss was an interesting aspect to the discussion of wars between Empires. Mac had lost his beloved wife “Billie” to an early-onset dementia and cared for her last years as a third career. Rex was a widower as well, having lost his wife Derlie in 1997. Jinny had lost her husband Barney in 1996. Despite these personal tragedies, the three remained vital and engaged in life. We think it is appropriate to open this story with hers, since it is a perspective not normally conveyed in accounts of great military events and their historic impact.

Jinny was intimately familiar with aspects of Naval Intelligence familiar to those swept along with the mission. Her husband was CAPT Barney Martin (1925-96). She had shared his career as a Special Duty- Intelligence officer (Navy personnel code “1630”) through a distinguished 33-year career and seen the duties and places that went along with it. That included service in World War II, the Cold War and its proxy components in Korea and Vietnam. The culmination of Barney’s career included three years as director of the Naval Investigative Service, forerunner of today’s NCIS.

You could see the vitality of her insight on the Intelligence Community in any relevant discussion. After Barney retired in the early 1980s, they moved to the exclusive Rancho Santa Fe development in San Diego’s North County. There, she helped design a fantastic castle-like home that incorporated graceful stonework with a crenelated turret as a center feature. She shared a picture of it to demonstrate her inspiration: it is a quotation of one she had seen when Barney was assigned to SIXTH Fleet in Gaeta, Italy.

Losing her husband was just part of the drama that unfolded with Barney’s death in 1996. He had included a provision in his will that joint residency in the Rancho Santa Fe castle with a companion- a husband- for longer than a stipulated “brief period” would cause the property to be transferred to his nephew. Jinny retained her beauty and vitality and Rex was naturally attracted to her when they met. Both were unattached and love bloomed. The provision in Barney’s will meant they had to split their time between the castle in California and Rex’s condo in Naples, Florida.

Her passions exceeded the narrow interests of maritime affairs. She loved art, the genealogy of her Wheeler family, and the Big Cats at the San Diego Zoo.

Jinny and Rex split their time in Rex’s last years between his condominium in Naples, FL, and the castle in Rancho Santa Fe. Rex passed away on Pearl Harbor Day of 2009.

She came to Washington to attend his funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. Coming East, she flew over the storm that was dubbed “Snowmaggedon.” Those of us who attended the service felt the flakes in the full honors funeral conducted with grace by the Army’s Old Guard who honor the ANC dead.

She stayed with the Chairman as the snow began to mount. It took three days for us to dig her rental car out of the parking lot at Big Pink and enable her return to the castle in the Golden State.

She remained a close friend and confidante until 2016. Although frail, her passing at the age of 88 was unexpected due to the vibrant way she lived. She was person we knew who had lived the experience we were trying to capture. We did not realize how dramatic her departure would be, since we were working on a cookbook at the time of her death. Thanks to her, we had a growing opinion that literature on the spy-trade was incomplete without reference to how whole families contributed to winning the Cold War. Who else would be able to relate a life in which the husband might call in a foreign posting and say “Hey, I invited the Czech delegation over for drinks and a snack. Can you rustle up something that would appeal to them? And here is what we need to collect on them…”

The cookbook may still happen. She was one of the great ladies we have had the privilege to know. But when she passed, the personal association with history is something she took with her. And her lovely face is the one we remember as the last of her generation.

Copyright 2022 Vic Socotra
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