1895.10.05 – 1961.08.09
A senior U.S. Army general who served as General Dwight D. Eisenhower‘s chief-of-staff at Allied Forces Headquarters during the Tunisia Campaign and the Allied invasion of Italy in 1943. Beginning in the next year, he was General Eisenhower‘s chief-of-staff at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) in Western Europe from 1944 through 1945.
(Wikipedia)
1950.08.01
The death of Secretary Forrestal on 22 May, 1949, created a vacancy [in the Majestic-12 Group] which remained unfilled until 1 August, 1950, upon which date General Walter Bedell Smith was designated as permanent replacement.
(Eisenhower briefing)
1952
As far back as 1952, the then Director of Central Intelligence, Walter Bedell Smith, recognized the need for a multidisciplinary approach to the subject. “It is my view that this situation has possible implications for our national security which transcend the interests of a single service,” he wrote in a memorandum to the Executive Secretary of the National Security Council. “A broader, coordinated effort should be initiated to develop a firm scientific understanding of the several phenomena which apparently are involved in these reports…”