General Charles Denholm
| "Two-Star Charlie". Helluva guy and great leader of ASA during
wartime. He was eccentric in the best sense of Geroge Patton; wearing a
huge fur coat over his uniform and driving around in a sports car. He
was a combat commander in WWII and had a big role in the American
advance in North Africa. He was a POW. He kept ASA alive and well doing
its mission; unfortunately, a couple of weak leaders after MG Denholm
(BG Godding and (later) LTG Royla, sold us out base on false allegations
of 'the green door" syndrome in Vietnam.......this "syndrome" did
happen, but I am here to tell you that many of us "junior ASA guys" in
Vietnam found plenty of ways to pass on sanitized real-time SIGINT to
combat commanders for immediate action. The real villian was the NSA
clique in Saigon who got a big kick out of inflating their egos by "slow
playing" ARDF, decrypts, and other Comint data, thus earning ASA a bad
rep with higher level combat commanders. I've been away from strategic
and tactical Sigint since 2000, but I have to tell you that from 1977
(death of ASA) until 2000, tactical Sigint (totally) and strategic
Sigint (partially) were totally mismanaged by "regular MI" and the Army
in general. I fondly remember MG Denholm awarding me a BSM in Can Tho, RVN, o/a March opf 1970. The "lifers" at the 335th RRC (soon to be Operations company Can Tho) thought my long and thick mustache would offend MG Denholm! He shows up in rumpled TWs with longer hair and sideburns than any 05H I ever knew!! Charles Denholm; Top General at Army Security Agency passed away Dec 28, 2006. |