From: The Telegraph (UK)

Patton as Lt. Gen (wikipedia)

George S. Patton, America’s greatest combat general of the Second World War, was assassinated after the conflict with the connivance of US leaders, according to a new book.

The newly unearthed diaries of a colourful assassin for the wartime Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA, reveal that American spy chiefs wanted Patton dead because he was threatening to expose allied collusion with the Russians that cost American lives.

The death of General Patton in December 1945, is one of the enduring mysteries of the war era. Although he had suffered serious injuries in a car crash in Manheim, he was thought to be recovering and was on the verge of flying home.

But after a decade-long investigation, military historian Robert Wilcox claims that OSS head General “Wild Bill” Donovan ordered a highly decorated marksman called Douglas Bazata to silence Patton, who gloried in the nickname “Old Blood and Guts”.

His book, “Target Patton”, contains interviews with Mr Bazata, who died in 1999, and extracts from his diaries, detailing how he staged the car crash by getting a troop truck to plough into Patton’s Cadillac and then shot the general with a low-velocity projectile, which broke his neck while his fellow passengers escaped without a scratch.

Mr Bazata also suggested that when Patton began to recover from his injuries, US officials turned a blind eye as agents of the NKVD, the forerunner of the KGB, poisoned the general.

Mr Wilcox told The Sunday Telegraph that when he spoke to Mr Bazata: “He was struggling with himself, all these killings he had done. He confessed to me that he had caused the accident, that he was ordered to do so by Wild Bill Donovan.

“Donovan told him: ‘We’ve got a terrible situation with this great patriot, he’s out of control and we must save him from himself and from ruining everything the allies have done.’ I believe Douglas Bazata. He’s a sterling guy.”

Mr Bazata led an extraordinary life. He was a member of the Jedburghs, the elite unit who parachuted into France to help organise the Resistance in the run up to D-Day in 1944. He earned four purple hearts, a Distinguished Service Cross and the French Croix de Guerre three times over for his efforts.

After the war he became a celebrated artist who enjoyed the patronage of Princess Grace of Monaco and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

He was friends with Salvador Dali, who painted a portrait of Bazata as Don Quixote.

He ended his career as an aide to President Ronald Reagan’s Navy Secretary John Lehman, a member of the 9/11 Commission and adviser to John McCain’s presidential campaign.

Mr Wilcox also tracked down and interviewed Stephen Skubik, an officer in the Counter-Intelligence Corps of the US Army, who said he learnt that Patton was on Stalin’s death list. Skubik repeatedly alerted Donovan, who simply had him sent back to the US.

“You have two strong witnesses here,” Mr Wilcox said. “The evidence is that the Russians finished the job.”

The scenario sounds far fetched but Mr Wilcox has assembled a compelling case that US officials had something to hide. At least five documents relating to the car accident have been removed from US archives.

The driver of the truck was whisked away to London before he could be questioned and no autopsy was performed on Patton’s body.

With the help of a Cadillac expert from Detroit, Mr Wilcox has proved that the car on display in the Patton museum at Fort Knox is not the one Patton was driving.

“That is a cover-up,” Mr Wilcox said.

George Patton, a dynamic controversialist who wore ivory-handled revolvers on each hip and was the subject of an Oscar winning film starring George C. Scott, commanded the US 3rd Army, which cut a swathe through France after D-Day.

But his ambition to get to Berlin before Soviet forces was thwarted by supreme allied commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, who gave Patton’s petrol supplies to the more cautious British General Bernard Montgomery.

Patton, who distrusted the Russians, believed Eisenhower wrongly prevented him closing the so-called Falaise Gap in the autumn of 1944, allowing hundreds of thousands of German troops to escape to fight again,. This led to the deaths of thousands of Americans during their winter counter-offensive that became known as the Battle of the Bulge.

In order to placate Stalin, the 3rd Army was also ordered to a halt as it reached the German border and was prevented from seizing either Berlin or Prague, moves that could have prevented Soviet domination of Eastern Europe after the war.

Mr Wilcox told The Sunday Telegraph: “Patton was going to resign from the Army. He wanted to go to war with the Russians. The administration thought he was nuts.

“He also knew secrets of the war which would have ruined careers.

I don’t think Dwight Eisenhower would ever have been elected president if Patton had lived to say the things he wanted to say.” Mr Wilcox added: “I think there’s enough evidence here that if I were to go to a grand jury I could probably get an indictment, but perhaps not a conviction.”

Charles Province, President of the George S. Patton Historical Society, said he hopes the book will lead to definitive proof of the plot being uncovered. He said: “There were a lot of people who were pretty damn glad that Patton died. He was going to really open the door on a lot of things that they screwed up over there.”

To read Patton’s famous speech to the toops in 1944, along with good historical counts partaining to it, follow this link.  Note: the speech is heavy with “offensive” language.

Updated Note: Due to a technical problem, Mr. Wilcox was not on the show, but has graciously agreed to come on for a full two hours next Tuesday, June 16.

Robert Wilcox will be our guest for the full two hours tomorrow at noon here on Free West Radio. I will be interviewing him about his new book, Target Patton, which details the plot to assassinate General Patton.

We will also discuss his views on the nixing of the F-22 Raptor, which he detailed in an article we published Sunday on the Free West Radio site.

Tune in tomorrow to listen to what promises to be a great show and call in with your questions or comments about Mr. Wilcox’s views and information. It promises to be a roller coaster two hours!

by Robert K. Wilcox

In the late 1960s, US flyers in Vietnam realized a tragic mistake. Their planners had erred. The dogfight weapons and tactics devised for them had serious problems. Aviators were dying and becoming prisoners of war as a result. In a larger war, control of the skies might have been lost, which would be a national disaster. Today, the decision about America’s newest front-line fighter, the F-22 Raptor, threatens to cause a similar tragedy. We could again lose control of the skies which is a must for victory.

The decision also bears on the heart of the nation’s current economic crises. Just what should taxpayer dollars be used for? A transfer of wealth or the nation’s defense?

Here’s what happened in Vietnam:

Following the Korean War, with air to air missile technology advancing, military experts predicted close-in dogfighting was dead. Adversaries wouldn’t get near enough for turning fights. They’d be shooting missiles at each other from long distances – “beyond visual range” or “BVR”. The air force and navy eliminated dogfight training. The navy even dropped guns, a close-in weapon, from its newest fighter, the F-4 Phantom. But once the war commenced, the folly of such decisions became obvious.

Missiles didn’t work as advertised. Real-time battle revealed flaws in their designs. Crews weren’t trained well enough in their use. Worst, pilots realized they had to get close to determine if the target was friend or foe. To eyeball their target they were forced into a close-in turning fight where missiles, needing certain distances to track, were often out of envelope. In that situation, guns were required.

As a result, the US started losing planes and pilots to simpler, Russian-built Vietnamese MiGs which were good little dogfighters. Vietnam, whose air force was small, didn’t present a major threat. But what if Russia declared war? The Russians had hordes of MiGs. The famous navy “Topgun” school was founded as a secret remedy. Read my book “Scream of Eagles” for the full story. Dogfighting skills had to be relearned, missiles and tactics sharpened. Once up to speed, US pilots again ruled the skies and have done so since.

But now it looks like a similar error is brewing. The F-22 is our latest and best fighter – a new generation plane needed to match some of the startlingly good fighters being fielded by our potential enemies. Our current frontline fighters, the F-15 Eagle, F-16 Viper, and F/A-18 Hornet, are old and vulnerable to the new enemy machines, especially MiGs and Sukois being produced in Russia and supplied to nations like China and North Korea. China also has its own new fighter, the J-10, comparable to our aging fleet. In practice fights the Raptor has slaughtered all opposition. But it’s expensive and being eyed for cutting by the new Obama administration. In addition, war planners are again predicting dogfighting is a thing of the past. Future wars will be guerilla type, like we’ve had largely in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ground troops, precision bombs and robot planes will be adequate, is the thinking – but only if we rule the skies.

In almost every war, we’ve entered unprepared. We tend to dismantle what we’ve learned, thinking peace will now prevail. And then jarringly – after a surprise attack or brazen aggression requiring response – we have to relearn again. Now, because we’ve had such mastery of the skies for so long, we’re again taking things for granted. Our emphasis has been on terrorism. Big land and sea battles have receded in our memory.

But the world is a volatile place. There are potential enemy nations with massive, conventional armies. China is one. If we have to fight them we need control of the skies. Only fighters can assure that. Otherwise precision bombers will be shot down. Land forces will be slaughtered. Even in Iraq and Afghanistan, the ability to call in an air strike often has been the difference between winning or losing, surviving or dying. That wouldn’t be the case if we didn’t own the skies. In today’s world, only the Raptor promises that.

There’s a truism amongst fighter pilots: a better fighter pilot in a lesser plane will always beat a lesser one in a better plane. It honors talent and training which US pilots thrive on. But fighter planes have advanced so much since the Eagle, Viper and Hornet appeared decades ago that even the best pilots in the aging warbirds the administration wants to rely on might have trouble with an enemy’s new or souped-up machine. Only continuing production of the Raptor assures that the truism remains. It is stealthier, faster, more agile and deadlier than anything else in the sky.

Yet the administration, to save money, is moving to cut the fighter’s production as a way to have more taxpayer money to pay for it’s record breaking socialist agenda, including corporate bailouts for bad business decisions, DMV-style health care and free broadband connections for all, and mortgage rescue payments for those who got in over their heads but not those who were responsible with their debt. Isn’t the first duty of government – and some would argue almost the only – defense of the nation? Even if you agree with the socialist agenda, what good does it do if our enemies can defeat us on the battlefield?

©2009 Robert K. Wilcox