Maxwell Davenport Taylor
was born in Keytesville, Missouri, on 26 August 1901. After graduating
from the United States Military Academy in 1922 he was commissioned
a Second Lieutenant of the 3rd Engineers. In 1926 he was transferred
to the 10th Field
Artillery.
Taylor was promoted to
First Lieutenant in February 1927 and became an instructor in French
and Spanish at West Point (1927-1932).
This was followed by posts at the Field Artillery School at Fort Sill,
Oklahoma and the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth,
Kansas.
Taylor served at the American
embassy in Tokyo (1935-1939) before becoming a military attaché
in Peking, China. Promoted to the rank
of Major in July 1940 he served in the War Plans Division and on a
Hemisphere defense mission to Latin American countries in 1940.
Taylor commanded the 12th
Field Artillery Battalion at Fort Sam Houston Texas (1940-1941) and
served in the Office of the Secretary of the General Staff (1941-1942).
He served under General Matthew B. Ridgway
as Chief of Staff of the 82d Airborne Division in 1942, then its artillery
commander in operations in Sicily and
Italy. Taylor commanded the 101st Airborne
Division in the Normandy invasion and the
Western European campaigns during the final years of the Second
World War.
In June, 1945, Taylor was
promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and was chief of staff
of the European Command. In 1949 he became commander of allied troops
in Berlin, a post he held for two years. In 1953, he was sent to the
Korean War where he took control of the
armed forces assistance program. From 1955 to 1959 he was the Army
Chief of Staff.
Taylor officially retired
from active service in July 1959. After the Bay
of Pigs disaster President John
F. Kennedy
created a committee (SGA) charged with overthrowing Castro's government.
The SGA, chaired by Robert
F. Kennedy (Attorney
General), included Taylor, John
McCone (CIA
Director), McGeorge Bundy (National Security
Adviser), Alexis Johnson (State Department), Roswell Gilpatric (Defence
Department) and General Lyman Lemnitzer (Joint Chiefs of Staff). Although
not officially members, Dean Rusk (Secretary
of State) and Robert
S. McNamara (Secretary
of Defence) also attending meetings.
At a meeting of this committee
at the White House on 4th November, 1961, it was decided to call this
covert action program for sabotage and subversion against Cuba, Operation
Mongoose. Attorney General Robert
F. Kennedy also
decided that General Edward
Lansdale (Staff
Member of the President's Committee on Military Assistance) should
be placed in charge of the operation.
In 1962 President John
F. Kennedy recalled
Taylor to active duty as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He
continued in this post under President Lyndon
B. Johnson until
he retired in 1964. Taylor served as Ambassador to South Vietnam (1964-1965)
and as Chairman of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (1965-1969).
Maxwell Davenport Taylor
died in Washington
on 19th April 1987.
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