Commander in Chief, Pacific
In 1958, Felt was offered the command of all U.S. forces in the Pacific and Far East, and he jumped at the opportunity to avoid spending the rest of his career behind a desk. Upon becoming commander in chief of Pacific Command on July 31, 1958, Felt immersed himself in the details of its operation, bombarding his staff with scribbled black pencil missives dubbed "Feltgrams" that invariably concluded, "Advise me ASAP. What do you think? No? Why? Resp'y, F." Although his job title was officially abbreviated as "CINCPAC", he was informally nicknamed "CINCFELT" within the command, due to his larger-than-life personality. During his tenure as CINCPAC, Felt directed American military operations in three regional hotspots: Taiwan, Laos, and Vietnam.
On August 23, 1958, People's Liberation Army forces commenced shelling Republic of China forces on the islands of Quemoy and Matsu, initiating the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis. Felt immediately deployed the Seventh Fleet to help the Nationalist government defend Quemoy's supply lines. "We didn't go to war then because we were strong and moved in a deterrent force," he later concluded. During the crisis, Felt and his staff planned for the use of tactical nuclear weapons in the Taiwan Strait because they believed the use of such weapons would not trigger World War III and because "we didn't have a plan to do it any other way".
A fervent anti-communist, Felt advocated American military intervention in Laos to suppress the Soviet-backed Pathet Lao insurrection and to interdict the flow of supplies from North Vietnam to Communist insurgents in South Vietnam through the Laotian town of Tchepone. In a meeting with Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara, Felt declared, "We have the Seventh Fleet and we have the planes to wipe Tchepone off the face of the earth." Instead, after an initial buildup of ships and Marines near Laotian borders, all American forces were withdrawn in accordance with a 1962 Geneva Conference in which all parties pledged to respect Laotian sovereignty. North Vietnam continued to supply South Vietnamese insurgents via Laos along what would become the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Read more about this topic: Harry D. Felt
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