Chester V. Clifton, Jr., Senior military aide to Presidents John F.

[Raymond]

Chester V. Clifton, Jr., Senior military aide to Presidents John F.
Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, died December 23, 1991, Walter Reed Army
Hospital. He was 78 years old and died of pneumonia after intestinal
operation, family member said.

http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2011/11/maj-gen-chester-v-ted-clifton-jr.html

Widely known as Ted, he joined Kennedy staff in 1961 and was the
officer responsible for the President's daily morning intelligence
briefings on world events. He was in the motorcade in Dallas on
November 22, 1963, when JFK was assassinated and made arrangements
with the White House to deal with military and national security
affairs after the assassination.

Remained as military aide to President Johnson until 1965, when he
retired from the army, after 33 years of service.

In December 1965, he was elected president of Thomas J. Deegan
Company, a public relations and management consulting firm. He then
formed Clifton-Raymond Associates in 1967, and next year established
Clifton Counselors, a management consultant firm that dealt mainly
with publishing affairs.

General Clifton was born in Edmonton, Alberta, and grew up in Puyallup
Valley near Tacoma, Washington. Attended the University of Washington,
and graduated from the United States Military Academy in USMA 1936 and
received a master's degree in journalism from the University of
Wisconsin in 1948.

Before his military career, he worked as reporter for Seattle Post-
Intelligencer and the New York Herald Tribune.

In World War II he served in the Field Artillery and fought in Italy,
France and Germany. After the war worked in public relations in the
army's Headquarters in Washington, D.C. and later became an Assistant
to General Omar N. Bradley. After attending the National War College
in 1954, he served with the Army's European command in Paris.

He was promoted to Brigadier General in 1956 and returned to
Washington, D.C. where became the chief of information for the Army.

He was co-author, with Cecil Stoughton, of "The Memories: J.F.K.,
1961- 1963," published by W. W. Norton; and served as public relations
consultant in development of the John F. Kennedy Center for the
Performing Arts in Washington, DC.

When he retired, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. Among
his other medals are Legion of Merit, French Croix de Guerre and
Italian Cross of Military Valor.
He lived in Washington, D.C., and is survived by his wife, Anne
Bodine, and brother, John R. Clifton, of Napa, California. Sep 24,
1913-Dec 23, 1991.

The General's remains were cremated and were buried with full military
honors in Section 30 of Arlington National Cemetery on May 28, 1992.

Maj. General Chester V. Clifton - "One of my favorite stories: the
exchange was wonderful. I saw this word, 'Draconian,' and I must say,
I wasn't familiar with it. It was in an intelligence report from the
CIA. I had very carefully written in the margin, 'cruel, inhuman!' The
President grabbed the report and was running through it, and when he
came to that he stopped and said, 'Who put this in here?' I said, 'I
did.' He said, 'That's the trouble with you military; now if you'd had
a classic Harvard education, you would have known what the word
meant.' So I said, 'Yes, Sir,' and later on -- oh, four or five days
later -- again the same thing: we were up in the bedroom, he was going
through the report, and there was some very technical military term,
in the atomic energy field -- I think it was 'permissive link.' He
said, 'Well, what's this mean?' I told him; he said, 'Right,' and I
said, 'Mr. President, if you'd had a classic military education at
West Point, you would have known what that word was.' He said,
'Touche,' and grinned. He was willing to give and take with great
humor.




Bay of Pigs
At 5:15 one morning last week, President Kennedy's military aide,
Brigadier General Chester Clifton, got an urgent telephone call. He
told the caller to telephone the President at his weekend home in
Middleburg, Va. Shortly afterward, in keeping with instructions he had
given, the President was awakened and told that an invasion force of
Cuban revolutionaries had landed as planned on the south coast of
Cuba. So began John F. Kennedy's darkest and bitterest week as
President.

Soon after he took office in January, Kennedy was faced with making a
command decision on Cuba... http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,,897719,00.html

Berlin Wall
...Early on the morning of August 13, thousands of frightened East
Germans were fleeing across the flimsy boundary into free West Berlin.
At 2 a.m. there were sirens, then the rumble of tanks on the East
Berlin cobblestones. East German troops carrying rolls of barbed wire,
concrete pillars, stone blocks, picks, and shovels leapt out of their
trucks. Four hours later, millions of Berliners lived in a huge
communist pen which over the next decade would be broadened and built
into an automated armed fortress of steel and concrete —a fortress
which stood as a monstrous rebuke to freedom.

The wall would become the greatest public relations disaster of our
age, with endless pictures of desperate men and women, rushing the
barrier and being shot down, and then left to die on the concrete no
man's land. Kennedy and other Presidents would use it as a stage to
unmask the what Ronald Reagan called "the evil empire."

This wall was no symbol
When it happened we were all caught off guard — including Kennedy. He
was on board his yacht, the Marlin, pushing off from the family dock
in Hyannis Port, Massachussets, preparing for a well-deserved cruise
with family and friends and a couple of bowls of fish chowder, his
favorite dish. A military duty officer rushed down to the beach with
the first flash. He walked into the surf in full uniform to deliver
the grim news to Brig. Gen. Chester Clifton, the Presidents military
aide who signaled the Marlin back to port. He handed the dispatch to
Kennedy who read it in silence. "You go ahead," Kennedy told the
family as he got into a golf cart with Clifton to ride back to his
house.

Kennedy remained silent for several minutes. Then he blurted, "Why in
hell didn't we know about it?" Clifton responded that out of more than
40 contingency plans he had read for Berlin he could not recall a
single one that dealt with the possible construction of a barrier...
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,171352,00.html

Jim Root - ...Senior Military Aid to Kennedy Chester Clifton, as I
understand it, kept the Kennedy calander and was responsible for
getting Kennedy to and from his daily appointments, he may have had a
major imput on the motorcade route decission. This man was assigned by
General Maxwell Taylor to this position and Clifton in the motorcade
at the time of the assassination. I might also point out that upon
graduation from West Point, Chester Clifton's first commanding
officier was Edwin Walker. See: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5737

ITEM for sale - From the Estate of General Chester V. Clifton
Note to Brig. Gen. Chester V. Clifton from Allen Dulles Re: Sukarno &
JFK
http://www.foia.cia.gov/docs/DOC_0000262133/DOC_0000262133.pdf

ITEM for sale From the Estate of Gen. Chester V. Clifton, Jr.:
President Kennedy’s first “efficiency report” to the Secretary of the
Army for his Military Aide, Brigadier General Chester V. Clifton, Jr.,
concluding “I do not want this assignment as my Military Aide to
interfere in any way with his early promotion which, based on my
observation, he merits…” – in July, Clifton was promoted to Major
General!

Title John F. Kennedy
Number 53567
Size 7" x 9.75"
Date June 16, 1961
Place Washington, D.C.
Category Presidential
Price $5,500.00

Description
Typed Letter Signed “John Kennedy” as President, two pages, 7” x
9.75”, separate sheets. The White House, Washington, June 16, 1961. To
Secretary of the Army Elvis J. Stahr, Jr. On pale green stationery.
Staple holes at upper edge, slightly reduced in size at top of both
sheets. Fine condition.

In full, “This letter covers the efficiency report period, January 20,
1961 to May 31, 1961, for Brigadier General C.V. Clifton, assigned as
Military Aide to the President. You and the Army can be proud of your
representative who demonstrates his integrity, his imaginative
resourcefulness, and his innate intellectual courage whenever he is
called upon. General Clifton attends to his assigned tasks of
representing the United States Army -- and you -- in an outstanding
manner.

“His additional duties as Defense Liaison Officer are carried out with
a most sensitive appreciation of the needs and viewpoints of the
Secretary of Defense and of all the services. He performs all of these
duties with courtesy, consideration for others, and most cooperatively
with the other members of my staff. His mature judgment, basic
knowledge and professional talents are contributed on every occasion
to achieve the end results that I desire.

“I realize that General Clifton has been in the rank of Brigadier
General for more than four years, and would normally be under
consideration for promotion to Major General. I have previously stated
that I do not want this assignment as my Military Aide to interfere in
any way with his early promotion which, based on my observation, he
merits, and in that higher rank, I would intend to retain him on my
staff.”

Five weeks later, on July 24, 1961, Brigadier General Chester V.
Clifton, Jr. (1913-1991) was nominated by President Kennedy to be a
Major General. President-elect Kennedy had appointed Clifton Military
Aide on January 19th, a day before his inauguration. Clifton was the
officer responsible for the President’s daily morning intelligence
briefings on world events. Major General Clifton was in the motorcade
in Dallas on November 22, 1963, when JFK was assassinated and made
arrangements with the White House to deal with military and national
security affairs after the assassination. He remained as Military Aide
to President Johnson until 1965, when he retired from the Army, after
33 years of service.

Book Co-Author
Memories JFK, 1961-1963
Authors: Cecil Stoughton & Chester V Clifton
ISBN:9780393009859
ISBN-10:0393009858
Publisher: WW Norton & Co
Date Published:1/04/1980
Format:Paperback Book
Pages:208
Language: English
RRP $48.95 Price $44.06
Approx Delivery
10 Days
Paperback Book

Book Description:
In 1961 President John F. Kennedy's friend and military aide, General
Chester V. (Ted) Clifton, assigned Captain Cecil Stoughton of the Army
Signal Corps to the full-time job of keeping a photographic record of
President Kennedy's days in the White House. Captain Stoughton had
extraordinary opportunities to photograph JFK as president, as father,
as husband, in moments of crisis and tension, of joy and relaxation,
of stern responsibility and of love.Hugh Sidey, the Time-Life
correspondent, himself a friend and close observer of the Kennedys,
writes: "It remains a curiosity of these times how many people were
touched in a special way by John F. Kennedy. The young people reserve
a special joy for him, something they salvaged in a way we barely
understand when they were seared by his death while they were still
younger. Those of us who lived in the Kennedy years find the memories
come back stronger than ever with even the slightest encouragement.
The unusual human dimensions of the man propelled him through politics
and gave his presidency its flavor and lasting meaning."This book is
not a deliberate assessment of his stewardship. It is a collection of
memories, a compendium of emotion captured on film in Kennedy's
thousand days.

Cecil Stoughton
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKstoughtonC.htm

Cecil Stoughton was born on 18th January 1920. His parents separated
when he was a child and he spent sometime in a boys' home in Omaha
before rejoining his mother.

Stoughton studied singing at William Penn College in Oskaloosa before
joining the United States Army during the Second World War. He was
trained as a photographer and after the war he worked for the public
information office. The head of the organization was Major General
Chester Clifton.

In 1961 Clifton was appointed as a military aide to President John F.
Kennedy. According to Richard B. Trask: "Captain Stoughton had so
impressed John F. Kennedy with pictures of his inauguration that the
new President, through his military aide, appointed him his official
photographer." According to Stoughton: "Prior to JFK, we had
Eisenhower, and there was no need for a photographer. He was about 63
years old and he didn't have the charm and charisma of President
Kennedy and he didn't have a family that engaged the American public."

Amanda Hopkinson has argued that: "Stoughton handled colour well, but
also shot in carefully contrasted black-and-white, which could be sent
down the wires and transferred to the print media with rapid effect.
He alternated his large-format Hasselblad portrait camera with a hand-
held 35mm, which was more flexible when he accompanied the
presidential retinue."

Barbara Baker Burrows, who worked for Life Magazine, has claimed: "As
much as any, when these pictures were published around the world, they
helped create the aura that later came to be called Camelot." It is
estimated that Stoughton took over 8,000 photographs of the Kennedy
family.

Stoughton was with John F. Kennedy when he was assassinated on 22nd
November, 1963. Stoughton travelled back to Washington with Lyndon
Baines Johnsonand Jackie Kennedy on Air Force One and was asked to
photograph the swearing-in of the new president.




Photo of LBJ pinning medal on Clifton
Superb Signed Photograph! President Johnson awards his retiring
Military Aide Major General C.V. “Ted” Clifton the Distinguished
Service Medal in a White House ceremony – Clifton had been in the
presidential motorcade in Dallas and witnessed Johnson’s swearing-in
aboard Air Force One

Description
Photograph Signed in red ink “To Ted Clifton / with affection / Lyndon
B. Johnson” as President. Color, 8” x 10”. Minute crease in upper
right blank corner. Stamping on verso: “34929 3 Aug 1965.” Fine
condition.

United Press International story datelined “Washington, Aug. 3 (UPI) –
President Johnson’s retiring military aide said today that the
President was leading the nation through difficult times with ‘great
care and great courage.’ Maj. Gen. Chester V. Clifton, Jr. paid
tribute to the President after Mr. Johnson awarded him the
Distinguished Service Medal at a White House ceremony. General
Clifton, who also was military aide to President Kennedy, retired from
the Army Saturday [July 31, 1965] after 33 years service.”

President-elect Kennedy had appointed Brigadier General Chester V.
“Ted” Clifton, Jr. (1913-1991) his Military Aide on January 19, 1961,
a day before his inauguration. Clifton was the officer responsible for
the President’s daily morning intelligence briefings on world events.
In July, he was promoted to Major General. As his Military Aide,
Clifton accompanied the President to Dallas and was in the motorcade
on November 22, 1963, when JFK was assassinated. Major General Clifton
was among those aboard Air Force One who witnessed the swearing-in of
Lyndon B. Johnson as 36th President of the United States. Clifton
returned to Washington with the new President, accompanying the body
of the late President. Major General Clifton was responsible for
making arrangements with the White House to deal with military and
national security affairs immediately after the assassination. He
remained as Military Aide to President Johnson until 1965, when he
retired from the Army, after 33 years of service.



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