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Robert Alexis McClure
McClure as a Brigadier General
Born	(1897-03-04)March 4, 1897 Mattoon, Illinois
Died	January 1, 1957(1957-01-01) (aged 59) Fort Huachuca, Arizona
Buried	Fairmount Cemetery, Madison, Indiana
Allegiance	United States of America
Service / branch	Philippine Constabulary United States Army
Years of service	1916-1917 (Philippine Constabulary) 1917-1957 (U.S. Army)
Rank	Major General
Unit	Office of Psychological Warfare
Battles / wars	World War I World War II Korean War Cold War
Awards	Distinguished Service Medal (2) Legion of Merit (2) Bronze Star Medal
Alma mater	Kentucky Military Institute
Spouse(s)	Marjory Crandal Leitch ​ ​(m. 1918)​
Children	2

Robert Alexis McClure (March 4, 1897 – January 1, 1957) was an American general, psychological warfare specialist, and is considered the father of U.S. Army Special Warfare.

Early life

Robert McClure was born on March 4, 1897, in Mattoon, Illinois, to George H. McClure and Hattie J. Rudy. He was the eldest child, with two younger sisters, Persis Elizabeth and Mary Susan. He also had a half-brother William Eckert, who served as a Lieutenant General in the United States Air Force and later became the fourth Commissioner of Major League Baseball. After his parents' 1907 divorce, McClure's mother moved to the family to Madison, Indiana, where she married Frank Eckert.

McClure grew up on a farm a short distance from the Kentucky border with Indiana. He attended school in Madison until transferring to the Kentucky Military Institute in Lyndon, Kentucky, from which he graduated in 1915.

World War I

After his graduation, McClure joined the Philippine Constabulary in August 1916 as a 3rd Lieutenant. The Philippine Constabulary was a militarized Filipino police force established by the U.S. Army after the Spanish-American War in 1898. Led by U.S. officers, its mission was to conduct counterinsurgency operations. During his service in the counter-insurgency force, McClure accepted a commission as an Infantry 2nd Lieutenant in the United States Army on August 9, 1917, four months after the American entry into World War I. His first assignment was with the 31st Infantry Regiment based out of Fort William McKinley, Philippine Islands. McClure subsequently served in Tianjin, Republic of China, as part of the 15th Infantry Regiment in 1918. The unit was responsible for securing rail access between the port of Qinhuangdao, Tianjin and Tongzhou.

Interwar years

In 1920 following the WWI draw-down, Captain McClure briefly returned to the Philippine Islands, stationed in Manila with the 27th Infantry Regiment. With the continuing draw-down and realignment of forces, McClure received reassignment.

Upon his return to the United States in 1920, McClure was assigned to the 19th Infantry Regiment located at Camp Sherman, Ohio, where he served as the post exchange officer. Being an Army officer that relished working in an operational context, McClure reportedly despised this assignment.

McClure received orders in 1922 to Fort Benning, GA, where he served as an Infantry instructor assigned to the 29th Infantry Regiment. McClure's capability as an expert horseman proved an asset to the Infantry School, and for a time he was an instructor for horsemanship at Fort Benning, leading the military base in several wins in Georgia horse show competitions.

While serving in the 29th, Captain McClure became the commander of the regimental headquarters company, describing to his hometown newspaper as "the most desirable assignment I have had."

In between leadership assignments, McClure graduated from the U.S. Army's Infantry School in 1925 and the Cavalry School's Troop Officers Course in Fort Riley, Kansas, in June 1926. Major General Robert H. Allen, Chief of Infantry recognized Captain McClure's graduation from the Cavalry School as an infantry officer stating, "It is of real importance to the Infantry, and to the service."

McClure graduated the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1932, and subsequently taught as a professor of Military Science and Tactics at Riverside Military Academy in Gainesville, Georgia. In 1936, Captain McClure was selected to attend the Army War College located in Washington, D.C. Post graduation, Lieutenant Colonel McClure taught at the Infantry School and War College in addition to serving as the executive officer under General John Dewitt and General Phillip Peyton at the War College. In July 1940, he was assigned to G-1 of the Fourth Army, headquartered at the Presidio of San Francisco, California.

World War II

When the United States declared war on the Empire of Japan on December 8, 1941, McClure was serving as military attaché to the American embassy in London. He was later given the additional duty of military attaché liaison to all of the European governments in exile in 1942. With these additional responsibilities, promotions came quickly: he became a brigadier general in March 1942, only nineteen months after his promotion to lieutenant colonel in August 1940.

Later that same year, McClure was appointed by Lieutenant General Dwight D. Eisenhower ("Ike") to chief of intelligence for the European theater of operations. In preparation for Operation TORCH, Eisenhower next tapped McClure to head the creation of a new organization. U.S. psychological warfare capabilities had been mothballed following the closure of WWI. The PSYWAR framework Colonel Heber Blankenhorn and his team built to fight the Central Powers in the Great War, had been nearly forgotten through attrition and atrophy following the post-WWI drawdown. The entity, known as the Allied Forces Information and Censorship Section (INC) was the foundation on which the U.S. psychological warfare capabilities in WWII were built. Writing to his wife Marjory in December 1942 from "somewhere in Africa," McClure stated:

My new job for which I was called by Ike very hurriedly is a continual headache ... I have what I call the INC Section ... I am just creating it.

Brigadier General McClure was given the task of consolidating several military functions into a cohesive unit: public relations, censorship and psychological warfare; with, in McClure's own words "a slop over into civil affairs" included. The INC included an amalgamation of military and civilian personnel from the U.S. Office of War Information (OWI); the Office of Strategic Services (OSS); the British Political Warfare Executive (PWE); and the U.S. Army.

McClure was appointed director of the newly created Psychological Warfare Division of SHAEF in 1944. With the end of the war in Europe he was responsible for the Information Control Division which controlled broadcasting and newspapers in Germany during the early stage of the occupation.

Cold War

After the invasion of Korea in 1950, the Office of the Chief of Psychological Warfare was formed in Washington, D.C., headed by McClure. During his tenure, the Psychological Warfare Center was established at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, which centralized 6th Radio Broadcasting & Leaflet Group along with the newly formed Psychological Warfare School, PSYWAR Board, and 10th Special Forces Group at a single location. In 1952, McClure was assigned to Iran as chief of three U.S. Military Missions, where he played a role in the 1953 d'état. He retired from the Army in 1956 and died of a heart attack soon after at Fort Huachuca, Arizona.

Decorations

During his 39 years of military service to the United States, Major General McClure received a number of military awards, including some foreign decorations.

Here is his ribbon bar:

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References

1. "Spike Eckert Biography by Baseball Almanac".
2. Colonel (Ret.) Robert D. McClure, U.S. Air Force, son of Robert A. McClure, interview by Jared Tracy, 14 February 2011, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC.
3. Philippine Constabulary, Student Officers’ Camp, Camp Wilhelm, “Record of Robert A. McClure,” Special Order #157, 1 August 1916, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC; Richard L. Millet, The U.S. Development of Constabulary Forces in Latin America and the Philippines (Fort Leavenworth: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010), 7-16.
4. Coffman, Edward M. (January 1994). "The American 15th Infantry Regiment in China, 1912-1938: A Vignette in Social History". The Journal of Military History. 58 (1): 57–58. doi:10.2307/2944179. JSTOR 2944179.
5. Peck, G. Richard (1999). Images of America: Chillicothe, Ohio. Charleston: Arcadia Publishing. p. 103.
6. "Horse Show". The Columbus Ledger: Columbus, Georgia: 3. 3 Mar 1924.
7. McClure, Robert (23 November 1923). "Letter to the Editor of the Madison Courier". Madison Courier.
8. Tracy, Jared (2011). "Major General Robert A. McClure". Veritas. 7 (2).
9. ^ Paddock, Alfred (1999). "Robert Alexis McClure: Forgotten Father of Army Special Warfare". Special Warfare Center and School. 12 (Fall). Retrieved 16 March 2023.
10. Department, U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) History. "Major General Robert A. McClure". arsof-history.org. USASOC.
11. Abrahamian, Ervand (2013). The Coup: 1953, the CIA, and the roots of modern U.S.-Iranian relations. New York: The New Press. pp. 157–158, 188. ISBN 978-1-59558-826-5.

External links

• Colonel Alfred H. Paddock Jr. "Major General Robert Alexis McClure: Forgotten Father of US Army Special Warfare". www.psywarrior.com.

• Generals of World War II

• 1897 births
• 1957 deaths
• People from Mattoon, Illinois
• United States Army generals
• United States Army Command and General Staff College alumni
• United States Army War College alumni
• United States Army personnel of World War I
• Recipients of the Distinguished Service Medal (US Army)
• Recipients of the Legion of Merit
• Officers of the Legion of Honour
• American recipients of the Croix de Guerre 1939–1945 (France)
• Recipients of the Order of the Crown (Italy)
• United States Army generals of World War II
• Military personnel from Illinois
• United States military attachés
• United States Army Infantry Branch personnel
• United States Army War College faculty