This is a great image of a Naval Intelligence professional. It is a professional record of how he looked when he was working. Tom “Big Smoke” Duvall. It was an honor to have known him. He is representative of a class of government specialists who could do whatever it was necessary to do.

Tom retired from Government service more than twenty years ago. Once free of the secrecy imposed by the work he did, he became interested in sharing some stories of his time in the hot seat. We were working on an “approved” version when he passed away. I rooted around some of the consequences to those stories on my own and showed the historic harvest to him. He was very stern in his response.

“My words only,” he would say, which led me to believe he had already cleared his narratives with those who still had professional or family relations that needed to be protected. I agreed with his instructions, and we published two episodes of adventures in Japan and Europe in which the system “worked the way things worked.”

I only had one chance to see those who had interests. I attended a funeral at Arlington Cemetery for one of the men who was instrumental in harnessing the full resources of New York City to support the US campaign to re-take the island of Sicily from the Germans in 1942. CAPT Tony Marsloe was 95 when he passed. The composition of the group who gathered at Arlington to attend the funeral was interesting. It included the Director of Naval Intelligence, the Commander of the Naval Reserve Intelligence Command, a few ONI officers, RADM ‘Mac’ Showers, and some some senior retired members of Naval Reserve Intelligence District 3-1. Family, of course, including widow Gloria and a dozen friends.

There was another small group, all male, mostly young, all in civilian clothes. They did not mingle, but stood in respect before departing. They had escorted CAPT Tony Marsloe’s body down from New York.

Someone was showing respect to the departed, and I decided that it was appropriate to show a little of the same. That was a challenge, since some of it was sensational and only parts of it were fact. We think it is about time to tell the parts of Big Smoke’s interesting career he felt were worth sharing. What we have is not the sort of history we normally see. It has no footnotes and is more in line with what we know as “oral histories.” But Tom’s narratives were presumably cleared with others.

There are several books out now that describe part of the relationships with the unconventional organizations. Our intent is to describe how things worked without intending any disrespect to those who found their “business” wrapped up into what we now call a “whole of Government” approach to solving problems. Even if it actually included a “whole” lot more.

That spilled over into memories of my younger days in Asia, after the Vietnam focus was done. The memories of the Occupation of another war lingered in curious ways. It is largely gone now, but I had some links to Nisei Americans who served there and can give some context of the social mores of the time, and how things changed so radically with the onset of the Korean war in 1950. The rehabilitation of Japan and Germany, almost overnight, was part of a larger, world-creating story that had no combat myth to go along with it. What happened to the treasure the new Empire had systematically acquired through plunder?

Were the stories from the Philippines true, and could there have been a slush fund of astronomical value in the hip-pocket of the American Shogun? Some of it could be, including the remarkable violence of the 1960s. Some of that still had enough juice to an old man to tell me firmly that certain aspects of his life were strictly- strictly- off limits.

The stories of the special POW camp at Fort Hunt, Virginia, made some of it emerge a decade ago. The camp was bulldozed out of existence shortly after the need for exploitation of high-value German POWs evaporated. They are illustrative of a complex time. Some of the translators involved in “PO Box 1142” (the cover for the POW program) had survived all those years and had a reunion at the turn of the century. Their stories were quite remarkable about what had happened on land transformed into Fairfax County parks. That naturally led to the story of Navy’s attempt to scour post-war Japan and Germany for science and scientists that might be useful in the new one. The Cold War.

The Navy Unit at Sands Point in Long Island harnessed the talents of Germans they found. The product was advanced sensors and weapons and a case in point. It was lesser known than the Army operation called “PAPERCLIP,” which relocated German Rocketeers from Peenemunde to Huntsville, Alabama. They then built the technology that enabled missiles to fly across the globe and took America to the Moon. But Sands Point (“The Castle”) and the products they made were equally critical in the development of the modern US Navy.

New York City was a hub for that activity, and then (as now) the Naval Reserve component was essential to mission accomplishment. The connection of the District Intelligence Office with New York criminal enterprises is now well known, though highly sensitive in its time. I attended the funeral of a grand old man who had been on the ground in Sicily during Operation HUSKY, when the defenses on the island were curiously ineffective against the advancing Yanks. Quite different from what happened at the beachhead under the guns of Monte Casino.

That disconnected batch of stories- the ones Tom wanted to share- butt up with those of the early 1950s from other sources. Some of those tales from a nice old woman whose husband played Starsky and Hutch games with Tito’s thugs in Belgrade. They include the story of a historic port visit by the 6th Fleet flagship in the Soviet backyard. Interesting stuff, but largely forgotten.

What is interesting is the demonstration of the truth in Falkner’s observation: the past is not dead. It is not even past.

We are now working on putting together the various parts of the story the participants felt worth sharing. And minding the sensitivities of the various interested groups.

But before you go, scroll back up to the image of Big Smoke that starts this teaser. In Tom’s narrowed gaze you will get a distant glimpse of how things used to work. And to be alert when you are doing it.

– Vic

Copyright 2023 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com