THE MEN WHO KILLED DELTA GREEN
Setting Information for Call of Cthulhu/Delta Green

From:
"The Man in Black" (scrogginl001@hawaii.rr.com)
Date: Saturday, December 20th , 2003
 
"The Vietnam War is the foggiest in my own personal experience. Moreover, it is the first war I know of wherein the fog of war is thicker away from the scene of conflict than on the battlefield..."
 
- General Earle Gilmore Wheeler, US Army, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 1964-1970.
 
 
January 24, 1970: DELTA GREEN clearance and classification is officially deactivated by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is suspected that the Chairman
at the time, General Earle G. Wheeler, terminated Delta Green in order to avoid a congressional inquiry into covert defense department activities. Possible suspects for congressional pressure include members of the select committees for intelligence, the armed services committee, house and senate committees on international relations or even the ethics committee.
 
It is unknown which Representatives or Senators may have begun tentative
inquiries into Delta Green. However, seven years later, the Senate Committee on Intelligence (under Senator Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawaii) did hold hearings on the MK ULTRA experiments. This was undoubtedly due to CIA Director William Colby's release of the "Family Jewels" document, which revealed all manner of CIA impropriety, such as Operation CHAOS, an effort to spy on anti-war protests in order to uncover communist subversion.
 
The JCS is a formal body consisting of six of the highest ranking officers in the United States: the chairman, the vice chairman, the chief of staff of the army, the chief of naval operations, the chief of staff of the air force, and the commandant of the marine corps. The Vice-Chairman position did not exist until 1986. The Chairman's position has traditionally been to serve as an intermediary between the Joint Chiefs and the Commander in Chief (the President of the United States). Some Chairmen attempt to build (or force) consensus on the JCS, while others prefer to let disputes and disagreements be mediated by the Secretary of Defense.
 
General Earle G.Wheeler, US Army, was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 3 Jul 1964 until 2 Jul 1970, when he retired from active duty. Prior to his appointment as Chairman, he was the Chief of Staff of the Army from 1 Oct 1962 until 2 Jul 1964. Wheeler replaced his old boss, General Maxwell Taylor, who had been somewhat of a "Yes Man" to the Kennedy Administration and the powerful Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara. After Kennedy's assassination Taylor was replaced within a year, and Wheeler, who had never had much contact with the new President, quickly became part of Lyndon Johnson's Texas-styled "Old Boy Network." Later on, Wheeler served under Nixon until his retirement. His tenure of six years was the longest of any Chairman. Regulations later restricted Chairmen to a two year term with limited reappointments except in time of war.
 
General William C. Westmoreland was chief of staff of the United States Army
from 3 July 1968 until 30 June 1972. Prior to holding the reins of the Army, he was United States Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, and United States Army, Vietnam, at the peak of the Vietnam War (1964-1968). Westmoreland's role in Vietnam was taken over by his deputy commander, General Creighton W. Abrams. General Abrams continued to follow in Westmoreland's footsteps when he became Chief of Staff of the Army on October 12, 1972. Abrams undoubtedly coordinated efforts with Admiral Zumwalt (see below). Abrams died in September 1974 as a result of lung cancer.
 
Delta Green had long had roots in the United States Navy, and the Chief of Naval Operations from 01 Aug. 1967 until 01 July 1970 was Admiral Thomas H. Moorer. It is unknown what knowledge Admiral Moorer may have had concerning Delta Green. Whatever his Delta Green clearance, Moorer went on to succeed General Wheeler as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. His tenure as Chairman was marked with indepenent action pre-empting the other Joint Chiefs. This seeming rashness was explained by Moorer as the only practical way to manage a crisis in real time, such as the Arab-Israeli Six Day War during which the USS Liberty signals intelligence ship was sunk by the Israeli military. Admiral Moorer retired a scant five weeks before President Nixon's forced resignation.
 
Relieving Moorer as Chief of Naval Operations was Admiral Elmo Russell Zumwalt, Jr., whose previous duty was Commander of U. S. Naval Forces, Vietnam and Chief of the Naval Advisory Group, U. S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, from 1 October 1968 to 15 May 1970. Zumwalt was a scientifically trained officer and popularized the office of CNO with a series of quirky policy directives known as Z-Grams that have since endured to become part of Naval Tradition.
 
General Leonard Fielding Chapman, Jr., USMC was the 24th Commandant of the
United States Marine Corps. His term of office extended from 1 January 1968 until 31 December 1971. General Chapman retired January 1, 1972 and served as U.S. Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization from 1973 until 1976. It is unknown whether or not he used his position to formulate policy blocking or assisting Tcho-Tcho immigration. General Chapman died January 7, 2000 at age 86 from complications resulting from cancer. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors on January 14, 2000.
 
Gen. John Dale Ryan was chief of staff of the USAF from Aug.1, 1969 until July 31, 1973. A football player during his academy days, he was a modest man, a WW2 bomber pilot and flight instructor. He also participated in Operation CROSSROADS, the atomic bombing of Bikini Atoll. He had previously served as Inspector General of the Air Force and Vice-Chief of the USAF. In either of these roles, he may have been granted MAJIC clearance.
 
From their E-Ring offices in the five-sided wedges of the Pentagon, these men saw fit, for reasons that to this day remain unknown aside from rampant speculation, to end the long commitment of the United States to combat the very clear and very present supernatural threat to all humanity. Their decision may have driven by distasteful political necessity, or it may have been orchestrated by some sinister conjuction of dire forces. Nevertheless, forty shadowy figures soon met to continue the desperate struggle against human extinction in which the Joint Chiefs had sought to capitulate. Delta Green lives on in an underground existence, while many of the men who buried it have since themselves been buried by the crushing onslaught of time.
 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY
http://www.dtic.mil/jcs/core/history.html
http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/cg&csa/Westmoreland-WC.htm
http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/Vietnam/Comm-Control/ch02.htm
http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/Vietnam/Comm-Control/index.htm#contents
http://www.agawam.ma.us/history/general/
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/pers-us/uspers-xz/e-zumwt.htm
http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq93-1.htm
http://hqinet001.hqmc.usmc.mil/HD/Historical/Whos_Who/Chapman_LF.htm
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/lchapman.htm
http://www.af.mil/bios/bio_7005.shtml
http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/jfq_pubs/2417pgs.pdf
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