The Conspiracy widens.

The conspiracy widens. You cannot put together an operation of this size and scope without outside help. Van Sice was not alone. Wisniewski was not his only co-conspirator. His legal advisor was a major player. A non-lawyer would not adroitly disregard the recommendations of the Article 32 Investigating Officer without getting legal advice from someone. That had to be CDR Sean Gill. Senior Coast Guard Officers all tend to approach their lawyers with the same attitude. They say “Don’t tell me what I cannot do. Tell me how to do WHAT I want to do!”

The cost alone would indicate that Commandant (G-L) and Commandant (G-P) were onboard. The degree of coordination needed to bring all of the parties to the Academy at the precise time would require knowledge and cooperation from a host of Headquarters level units.

This was more than a conspiracy. This was a strategic policy . That would mean this was a Coast Guard policy decision. That is frightening. When he court-martialed Webster Smith, Van Sice was not breaking ranks with main stream Coast Guard policy makers; he was in perfect lock-step. He had been given clearance to court-martial a cadet, a Black cadet. He must have felt that he was on solid ground. It seems a bit bizarre that the first three cadets singled out for court-martialing were all Black, and all football players. One at the Coast Guard Academy; one at the Air Force Academy; and, one at Annapolis.


Navy Cadet Lamar Owens.



Compared to what Van Sice and Wisniewski did, Webster Smith deserves the Coast Guard Good Conduct Metal. Webster Smith committed a few college pranks. Van Sice and Wisniewski eviscerated the Honor Code concepts. They coached witnesses to lie. They tampered with witnesses, exerted unlawful command influence, they abused their discretion and they misused the legal process.

Coast Guard cadet Webster Smith




This would partially explain WHY Van Sice, as the Convening Authority, exhibited complete and utter disdain during this entire fiasco.
The cost would not be prohibitive, since there appears to have been some thought given to making it self-funding. If you bill the convicted cadet about $100,000.00 that would pay for most of your expenses. You could call it reimbursement for his Academy education. Make the family pay.
In China when a convicted criminal is sentenced to be executed, he is tied to a chair in a stadium and killed with a bullet to the brain. The government charges the cost of the bullet to the family of the executed criminal. They make the family pay. Who is more enlightened?
The Secretary of the Navy is not as enlightened as one would have hoped. He has overruled the Annapolis Superintendent, Admiral Rodney Rempt, and he has ordered that Cadet Lamar Owens must repay $90,000.00 for his training. He has the nerve in the face of a cry in some quarters for reparations for the descendents of the African slaves, to ask the sons and grandsons of slaves and sharecroppers to repay more than the entire family makes in five years. In many cases Black college students today are the first in their families to even go to college. The Secretary of the Navy, Donald C. Winter, is needlessly grandstanding.




This is a flea-flicker play by the Navy Secretary, but there is a great counter play. You see, Lamar Owens won a lot of games for the Navy; and, he filled a lot of seats. Also, he had one of Washington, DC’s best Super Lawyers representing him at his court-martial. Lamar Owens would do well to get his “million dollar baby” attorney, Reid Weingarten, to sue Annapolis and the Naval Academy Alumni Association for a percentage of the proceeds from all of the football games that he played in, and for the concessions and parking and souvenirs and the free publicity that he generated as their star quarterback. He was exploited. He was used. Annapolis did not do him any favors. They pursued him. He earned more money for Annapolis and the Navy than he was allocated to pay for his marginal education.

On the day the star female witness was giving her testimony, a senior officer from the Academy was in Washington appearing before a Congressional sub-committee chaired by Christopher Shays on the subject of Sexual Assaults against women at the nation’s military academies. That is too much of a coincidence.

Webster Smith has filed an appeal, claiming that several errors were made during his court-martial last summer. One of the key points in the appeal filed April 13 is a claim that a key witness, Shelly Raudenbush, a female cadet, had previously falsely claimed sexual assault against a Coast Guard enlisted man to avoid discipline.

The primary charges on which he was convicted stemmed from a series of sexual encounters with, Shelly Raudenbush, a classmate, in her dorm room in October 2005.

The appeal claims Smith's lawyers weren't allowed to question or cross examine Shelly Raudenbush about her allegedly false sexual assault accusation.
Limiting cross-examination, the appeal says, denied Smith his constitutional right of confronting his accusers, "of showing, through cross-examination, that Shelly Raudenbush had lied before under similar circumstances and that she had a motive (indeed the same motive) to lie again."

Also, the defense lawyers were not allowed to question Shelly Raudenbush about consistent pattern of romantic infidelities beginning in high school and continuing to the present. The defense could have called any of her old boyfriends that she proved unfaithful to. The defense could have called Doug Genna or Marvin Kierstead, among others.



Van Sice and Wisniewski played the news media like a violin. They held press conferences. They gave out pictures of Cadet Webster Smith. When they had gotten a conviction on a minor charge, they paraded Webster Smith in front of the cameras like a prize trophy.

After his kangaroo court-martial, Cadet Webster Smith was immediately taken to the U.S. Navy brig at the Submarine Base in Groton, Connecticut on 28 June 2006. He should have been granted an 8 day deferment of the sentence. This is normally a routine thing. However, this was not a routine case, by any means. Even the vilest military convicted offender is given some time alone with his family to say good-bye. Webster Smith was not. Webster waited in a secure room under double security guards while his written Request for Deferment was presented to Admiral James Van Sice. The Admiral sat in his ivory tower with Commander Sean Gill, his military advisor, and drank coffee. Then he summarily denied the routine request without any justification whatsoever. This has never been done before. Admiral Van Sice received bad advice from his legal advisor.
As soon as Van Sice's signature was on the denial order, two flat-footed agents from the Coast Guard Investigative Service (CGIS) ordered Cadet Smith's parents to vacate the premises. Mild mannered Webster Smith was handcuffed and paraded up and down the corridor like Jesus being paraded between Caiaphas and Pontius Pilate for all the rabble to gawk and marvel. Poor Webster Smith was made a spectacle. Thoroughly humbled and suitably constrained, he was offered for inspection to Kristen Nicholson and Shelly Raudenbush, the two principal witnesses against him. This was after they had gotten a chance to hug the Prosecutor. I am told that Kristen was the first one to give him a big hug. Then, still in handcuffs, Webster Smith was paraded in front of the news media for a photo opportunity. It was a Kodak Moment. This was a sort of victory dance for the Prosecution and the Convening Authority. This was cruel and inhuman punishment. This was truly a new low even for the likes of James Van Sice. This single act more so than preferring groundless charges shows clearly the character of Admiral James Van Sice. He is not only a rabid racist, and a confirmed bigot, but he is also just plain mean spirited.

While on vacation I was surfing the internet news and came upon a story about the court-martial of a cadet at the Coast Guard Academy. It was news. It was in the newspapers, but when I called CG Headquarters, I was told that they did not know anything about it. I called 3 times. I spoke to a LCDR in the Legal Office (G-L) and a LT in the Office of Personnel (G-P). Both gave me the same story. They did not know anything about a Court-martial at the Academy. If they were at Headquarters, then they could not be so far out of the loop that they did not know about the trial at the Academy. So, obviously the information black-out was on. If you did not know, then you did not “have a need to know”. So all inquiries would be met with the same answer.
Everyone at Headquarters from the Commandant on down to the lowliest Admiral’s driver had to know. This must have been the Coast Guard’s dirty little secret. Any one who did not agree, or who was not a major player, simply kept his mouth shut.
The Superintendent’s Legal Advisor, Cmdr Sean Gill must have been a party to the conspiracy. He had to be at the center of it. He was the Convening Authority’s principal legal advisor. And he had to coordinate with Headquarters, Military Justice Division and the Office of Personnel. There had to be general acquiescence of every Department Head at CG Headquarters. The Coast Guard was going to be the first military service academy to court-martial a cadet for sexual assault against a female cadet. This was a policy decision, just like the decision to be the first to admit female cadets was a policy decision. I was a part of that. It took months of planning and meetings and coordination.

DAY OF JUDGEMENT FOR WEBSTER SMITH.

Those who were not present on Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at the

United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (USCAAF)

450 E Street, Northwest

Washington, D.C. 20442-0001

for the oral arguments in the case of United States v. Webster M. Smith, Case No. 08-0719/CG, missed a real burn burner.

The judges of the USCAAF are civilian judges and sit as a single panel on all cases. Typically, all five judges participate in each case. The judges came out firing questions fast and furious to the two Appellate Attorneys. The first one up was Counsel for Webster Smith: Ronald C. Machen, Esquire. He was prepared and completely unflappable. He responded to every question put to him. When he was interrupted in mid sentence, he did not forge on and try to finish his thought; he immediately responded to the Judge's question. He gave reasoned responsive answers to every question. Some judges fired hard ball questions, and one judge even offer up a soft-ball question which was answered in the same serious manner.

Then came Counsel for U S Coast Guard: LT Emily P. Reuter, USCG. She had a cold or was recovering from the Swine Flu and began by pleading for leniency because of her weakened voice. It was downhill from there for her. She did not appear to give responsive answers to most of the questions put to her. She may have not even clearly understood some of the question before she attempted to respond to them. Frequently she appeared to retreat to her notes or her brief and read the holdings from cases that she had cited in her brief. Perhaps this was her first time arguing before the court or maybe this was a case that no one else wanted to argue, but there surely was not her finest hour.


This was an appeal from a General Court-Martial (GCM) conviction for going from place of duty, attempting to disobey an order, sodomy, extortion, and indecent assault. The ISSUE on Appeal was whether the military judge at the court-martial at the Coast Guard Academy violated Webster Smith’s constitutional right to confront his accusers by limiting his cross-examination of Shelley Roddenbush [SR], the government’s only witness, on three of the five charges.

Counsel for each side was allowed 20 minutes to present oral argument in the case.


The judges of the USCAAF are Judge Andrew S. Effron is the Chief Judge. The other four judges are Judge James E. Baker, Judge Charles E. “Chip” Erdmann, Judge Scott W. Stucky, and Judge Margaret A. Ryan, the most recent appointee.

The first issue that they tackled was the jurisdictional issue. The Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals had denied a request for reconsideration on 14 May 2008. It was not clear whether this was in the Appellate Record. There was a question of how many days had elapsed from the notification of the denial to Webster Smith's attorney and the date that Attorney Machen filed his appeal to the USCAAF. The Coast Guard had sent the Notice of Denial via DHL, a German company, rather than simply using the U. S. Mail as required by the Rules of Court. Apparently there are two time periods that may be relevant under Article 67(B) of the USCAAF's Rules. One is a 61 day rule and the other is a 95 day rule.

They kept coming back to this jurisdictional issue again and again. I do not think they hammered it out definitively during the hearing. Webster Smith's attorney said that it is not in the Record that he was notified on 14 May. LT Emily P. Reuter for the USCG said that it was in the Record. I am sure the USCAAF judges will settled the issue before they issue a decision.

This is troubling because I would hate for the judges to dodge the ISSUE on Appeal because of a technicality like jurisdiction. I could hear a couple of the judges contemplating doing just that. The tone and the tenor of the questions leads me to just that conclusion. It would be a shame after all this time and effort to be cheated out of a hard and definitive decision on the ultimate ISSUE.

That being said, it is my reasoned opinion that the judges of the USCAAF are poised to reverse the conviction of Webster Smith. I feel there is better than a 60-40% chance that they will reverse the conviction by a majority vote. also, there is a 51-49% chance of a unanimous decision.

I think Judge Ryan is a swing vote. She gave Attorney Machen the hardest time. If at all possible she might do like Judge Lane I. McClelland of the Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals and uphold the status quo. However, I do not think she would go out on a limb and write a dissenting opinion. If the other four judges split 2-2, I think she might side with the judges who determine that a reversal is warranted because the Trial Judge abused his discretion and committed reversible error.

Judge Baker appears most eager to reverse this conviction because Webster Smith was denied his right to a fair trial. He sees this as a fair trial issue. He believes that the trial court members had a right to know what the secret was that SR wanted Webster Smith to keep, that it was of a sexual nature, that she had recently lied about it being nonconsensual when it was really consensual oral sex with an enlisted man in Norfolf, Virginia. Also, SR wanted Webster Smith to go out and lie for her so badly that she was willing to pay him with sexual favors.

Judge Baker feels this was crucial evidence that the members were entitled to know. The exact nature of the secret was crucial to Webster Smith's defense. The Trial Judge relied upon Rule 412 of the Military Rules of Evidence and allowed into evidence only the fact that Webster Smith was privy to a secret that SR wanted him to keep; and that secret concerned something that could ruin her cadet and officer career in the Coast Guard.

Even though Judge Baker is a civilian, he might have served in the military. He pointed out that there are lots of secrets that can harm one's career. It could be a secret concerning having failed a physical training exercise; or, it could be a secret involving a wardrobe or a uniform violation. The members had no way of knowing the precise nature of the secret since the trial judge protected SR from more rigorous cross-examination. They did not know that when SR was faced with rumors she lied to limit her own culpability. Giving a limiting instruction to the members was not sufficient to cure the error. It was more than harmless error. It was big, earth shaking, reversible error. It violated the Sixth Amendment of the U. S. Constitution.

As Attorney Machen so eloquently stated, SR had used the secret as a sword and a shield. It shielded her from testifying at the Article 32 investigation, and it was the sword that she used at trial to stab Webster Smith through the heart. It killed him and his career in the Coast Guard. It is what the judges referred to as the Theory of Innoculation. The secret had innoculated SR from two investigations. It saved her from testifying at the Article 32 Investigation.

LT Emily P. Reuter wanted to argue that this was not a Fair Trial issue, but it was a pattern or practice issue. As such the Trial Judge was correct to limit cross-examination of SR to stop any evidence from coming in concerning her prior sexual history or her propensity to tell lies. She argued that the Defense's Theory of the case at trial was wrong for the evidence that they were trying to elicit, and that the Trial Judge correctly used Rule 412. If he erred, it was no more than harmless error. It was not Reversible Error. She was not persuasive.

Truth crushed to earth shall rise again. The essence of truth in this case is finally coming to the surface. From where I sit, the USCAAF stands ready to right a gigantic wrong. It wants to reconsecrate the Temple of Justice in the Coast Guard. It wants to heal the wound that was inflicted on the Sixth Amendment by the trial court and the Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals.

Superintendent Conspired to Convict Cadet.

http://www.amazon.com/CONDUCT-UNBECOMING-Officer-Lady-Conviction/dp/1460978021




Admiral James Van Sise, Superintendent at the Coast Guard Academy, did more than make inappropriate comments concerning the Cadet Webster Smith case. On the day that rape charges were being dropped against the DUKE University Lacrosse players evidence was surfacing that strongly indicated that Admiral Van Sice orchestrated an organized conspiracy to convict Cadet Webster Smith. The big question still remains WHY? Why would a man with over 30 years of experience in the Coast Guard and at the top of his profession risk everything to convict an Academy cadet?

(THIS POST TEMPORARILY REMOVED FOR REVIEW by the author)

Academy Task Force Report

The long awaited Task Force Report (The Report) has finally arrived, and it is big in two respects. It is big in size, and it is a big disappointment. It does not plow any new ground. It does not tell us anything that we did not already know. Unless you have been on the moon for the last 40 years, there is nothing new in the report. Experience is the best teacher, and history is a reliable guide. The reality of seeing the world through lenses formed by dated experiences is not a handicap. It is called tradition. It keeps you on course and prevents reinventing the wheel every generation. However, between the jibber-jabber there was some great analysis and a few factual and historical inaccuracies. But, overall the Report is a commendable snapshot of the Coast Guard Academy culture.
https://www.uscg.mil/foia/taskforce/Appendix.Release.pdf
Maybe the Task Force Report was just a diversion, a means to buy some time until the furor over the Webster Smith case subsided.

It is an old Washington, DC trick. If you want to table a matter or if you want to buy some time, then you form a Commission or a Study Group. That will buy you some time and it will give the various factions time to cool off. This Task Force took about six months and that was enough. Not many people except for certain elements of the news media are as emotionally wrought over the Webster Smith case today as they were six months ago. So, in that respect, the Task Force was a success.

It is not new or surprising that cadets do not trust Company Officers. That is old news. Before the female cadets came, the Company Officers were not fully trusted, but they were revered. They were respected and they had a close working relationship with the Cadet Company Officers. We even had dinner at their homes on occasion. That chemistry changed when the female cadets arrived. If there was only a little trust before the Webster Smith Case, it is no wonder that even that pecuniary amount has been severely eroded after the cadets witnessed how vulnerable they were if they stepped forward and became involved. Cadets went to school on the Webster Smith case and its aftermath. They saw exactly how the system worked. They saw the most senior officers exhibiting character traits that were far outside of the Honor Code. They learned what kind of reprehensible behavior was allowed and was geared to help you survive when the chips are down.

Doubt, distrust, and disillusionment were introduced into the barracks. Social anthropologists should not have been surprised. Before Captain Cook arrived in the South Pacific, the Tahitians had no concept of personal property or immorality. Captain Cook introduced the concept of personal ownership and the Anglican sense of sexual immorality. The Tahitians, who for two thousand years had owned everything communally, thrived and dance nude, began to covet the possessions of others. They put on clothes to cover their nakedness and became drunken and sexually promiscuous. The alcohol, the clothes, sense of personal ownership, the feeling of sinning and Western diseases wiped out thousands of Tahitians.

Introducing a new element always means some change in the chemistry. Just the rumor in the 60’s that Black cadets were coming started the ripples in the Corps of Cadets in the Class of 1966. When Ned Lofton, Mike Grace, Ron Blendu, and Imonse Leskinovich, among others, mostly cadets from Massachusetts and Florida, heard that Kenny Boyd and London Steverson were going to break the color barrier in the Class of 1968, they immediately let it be known that they intended to institute their “plantation policy”. Merle Smith stepped up and said, “Not over my dead body”.

It was common practice in those days for upperclass cadets to make slaves of swabs, incoming freshmen.The swab would be required to come to the upperclassman’s room every morning, empty the waste basket, sweep the floor, make the bed, do the laundry, and anything else the upperclassman desired. (See, COMMAND and LEADERSHIP, NOT ALWAYS the SAME, by Ray Coye, PhD, CGA Class 1971, CGA Alumni Bulletin, Vol69, No.4, p. 10) It is similar to the practice in prison where a convict adopts a younger, weaker, more effeminate convict as his personal “cup cake”. The slave practice continued through the 70’s, 80’s, and maybe even until today. An upperclassman could require a swab to do anything he pleased, depending on his proclivities. There were no female cadets in the barracks in those days. Today, there are women in Chase Hall. One can only wonder what they are required to do today to escape hazing and punishment.


Introducing women into the cadet corps had a profound affect on the cadet psyche. Sexual attraction, petty rivalries, competition for favors, urges to impress, ambitiousness cut across class lines. Loyalties shifted. They shifted from cadet loyalty upwards to the Company officers. The new loyalties were lateral to fellow cadets, and the Company Officers went from friends to enemies. That is what you have today.

The 23 or so incidents of sexual involvement that the Task Force looked at were the same ones that the Webster Smith Civil Rights Investigator looked at, but she only acknowledged 11. That appears to be a low number and that may be cause for elation in some quarters, but it all depends on how you define the parameters.






It is as President Bill Clinton would say; “It all depends on your definition of a sexual incident”. The Task Force and the Civil Rights investigator only looked at the most extreme cases. So, there were only 11 to 23 that were so egregious that they had to be dealt with by the Administration. They did not even consider the many that only involved public displays of affection, hand holding, caressing, touching body parts, and feeling each other up; not to mention, the untold numerous cases of consensual sex between cadets who fancied themselves as being in love. Those were not considered. And there were the many incidents that were not reported and are known only to the cadets. They did not report them because they could not trust the Company Officers, and they did not want to be known as a snitch. And those were legion.

So, you can predetermine your outcome by the way you define your parameters. I know, the cadets know, and most of the Administration suspects that there are many more incidents that they would just as soon leave in the closet. The cadets have learned that their security lies in their obscurity.


In a student body of only about 950, with 30 per cent being females, if 73 percent of the cadets occasionally engage in sexual relations with “other cadets in Chase Hall” there would logically have to be more than 11 to 23 incidents of sexual misconduct, since the Regulations forbid all sex between cadets in Chase Hall. If 79 percent of the cadets believe in binge drinking and over half do not believe looking at pornography disrupts good order and discipline, then Chase Hall is a hot bed of sexual activity. There is more anatomy being studied than seamanship in Chase Hall. I dare say that there is more torrid sex taking place in Chase Hall than in Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion. (The Report, page 24, Step One Analysis).

Even assuming the Report is correct that sexual assaults are at about 5 percent, in a population of 950, that would indicate 48 assaults. (The Report, page 40) If we included the consensual sexual activity, then 11 to 23 incidents of sexual misconduct in Chase Hall is highly doubtful. And out of all that committed sex, only Webster Smith was consider worthy of a General Court-martial.










“Women generally outperform their male counterparts in both academic and military requirements”, according to the Report. (The Report, page 39). If that is truly the case, then it is a good thing the Academy is not a regular “Joe College”. The percentage of women in the student body could easily go from 30 percent to 70 or 80 percent on a strictly merit system of admissions. Men would have to seek “affirmative action” in order to gain admission. The Admissions Office would have to consider GENDER as a factor in admissions, along with race, SAT scores, and extra-curricular activities. It would be the Whole-man Concept, or perhaps the Whole-person Concept.

One out of three cadets graduating in the Class of 2007 from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy will be a woman, making it the largest class of female cadets to graduate.



President George W. Bush is scheduled to deliver the keynote speech to the 229 graduates.


The Task Force Report is factually and historically incorrect on several points. Cadet Merle Smith’s appointment was not a result of President John F. Kennedy’s observations that there were no Black cadets marching in the Coast Guard Academy contingent in his 1961 inaugural parade. It would take months for Kennedy’s observation to be relayed through the chain of command all the way to the Academy Admissions Office. Then the word would have to filter down to the Recruiting Offices. Moreover, Merle Smith would have had to take the SAT exam and complete the application for admission before the Academy even marched in the Kennedy inaugural parade. Merle Smith was a service brat. His father was a career military officer. His family moved around consistently. His father being an army colonel wanted his son to get a free military academy education, but he could not get a Congressional appointment. The Coast Guard Academy is the only service academy that does not require a Congressional appointment. So, Colonel Smith applied to the Coast Guard Academy for his son. In 1962 when Merle Smith arrived at the Academy, it was not as a Black cadet. He had competed and gained admission without any regard to his possible ethnic background. He was not recruited as a Black cadet. He was not admitted as a Black cadet. It was not until 1964 two years later when Kenny Boyd and London Steverson were admitted in the Class of 1968, that it was discovered that Merle Smith was of African American background. There have never been more than two Kennedy Cadets. They are Boyd and Steverson.

Cadet Anthony Alejandro would hardly consider himself Hispanic. He was an Argentine from an aristocratic family. They considered themselves Italian. They disdain Spaniards, especially Mexicans. They say that they are the only Europeans in South America.

The Report makes no mention of Cadet Donnie Winchester. He was a favorite of Otto Graham. He was in the Class of 1966.He was the first American Indian of almost pure blood to graduate from the Academy. Perhaps Indians are so rich now with their casinos and the rich mineral deposits on the Reservation lands, they are no longer considered a minority group. The Census Bureau probably still classifies them as a minority group.

Jarvis L. Wright may be another case of “racial kidnapping”. From 1876 to 1961 there had never been a Black graduate from the Coast Guard Academy.
Wikipedia allowed someone in the Coast Guard to insert a reference to Jarvis Wright into an article concerning Black Cadets at the Coast Guard Academy. The Coast Guard must be extremely desperate to even attempt such a ploy as to try to move the time line for the first appointment tendered to a Black cadet back from 1962 to 1955, from Merle Smith to Jarvis Wright.
All history is spin, but this is revisionist history at its worst. Jarvis Wright is the original “invisible man”. Only a young naive person would even conceive of such a ridiculous thought. Anyone over 50 years old would know immediately that this is a most unlikely scenario. In 1954 the Nation was undergoing a revolution. The Supreme Court was about to announce a “unanimous” Decision concerning racial segregation in the case of Brown v Board of Education. Everyone was riveted to their television screens watching the race riots in Little Rock, Arkansas. Not since the Civil War had the Southern states so openly defied the Federal Government. Racial integration was on everyone’s minds. President Eisenhower was forced to choose between sending in Federal Troops or nationalizing the Arkansas National Guard to force Governor Orville Faubuss to allow Black students to enroll at Central High School in Little Rock. He ended up using the Screaming Eagles from the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
It is unthinkable that Coast Guard senior officers who were born and raised in the Deep South were secretly trying to recruit a Black; the first Black cadet in the history of the Academy. What idiot would even dream of such a nightmare? The thought is not even conceivable. Even the thought or the recommendation to do such a thing would have ruined any white officer’s career in the Coast Guard.
Jarvis Wright is the original “invisible man”. Where is the evidence that Jarvis Wright ever existed? What state did he come from? What high school did he graduate from? Where is the proof? There is none.
In the 50s and the 60s it was mandatory that a Black high school student applying to a white college was required to submit a photo with the application. They wanted to make sure that you were black, but not too black. This was one of the institutionalized segregationist racist practices that were abolished after the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. I had to submit a photo with my application to the Coast Guard Academy in 1962 and 1963. If Jarvis Wright ever existed, then the Coast Guard Academy and the Commandant Office of Personnel would have his application and a photo as evidence. Some one should publish it.
Moreover, I worked in Coast Guard Headquarters in the Office of Personnel for seven years from 1972 to 1979, and no one ever mention anyone by the name of Jarvis Wright. I was the personification and the embodiment of Minority Recruiting for the Coast Guard. Except for Lcdr Maxie M. Berry in the Civil rights Office and Earl Brown in the Office of Engineering, the only two other Black officers at Headquarters were assigned to my staff. They were Earl Martin and Walter Sapp. They worked for me. In no meetings or discussions, either formal or informal, did the name of Jarvis Wright ever come up.
This is just another reason the Coast Guard cannot be trusted to write history. Their motives are suspect. Anyone who would "take a bow" for recruiting white women as a minority deserves to be subjected to the strictest scrutiny before accepting such unbelievable claims more than 50 years after the fact. Could this be another case of Racial Kidnapping, as in the case of Michael Healy? The Coast Guard has been known to do this sort of this before. As President Reagan said “We must trust BUT verify”. Where is the proof? Show us a picture of Jarvis Wright? Or is he truly the invisible man?
It is highly questionable whether Jarvis Wright was recruited as an African American or was of a minority ethnic group, even if he ever existed, any more than Captain Michael Healy. He was a white Irish catholic who has been heralded by the Coast Guard as the “Black Hero of the North”, and as the first Black Captain in Coast Guard history. Mike Healy was not Black. He was a white, hard drinking Irishman.

So, it is highly unlikely that from President Kennedy’s remarks in 1961 to 1962, the Coast Guard looked for, found, and persuaded to apply for admission to the Academy a Black high school student. The facts and the timeline speak for themselves. You are entitled to your own opinion, BUT you are not entitled to your own FACTS.
Any student or writer of contemporary history has a duty to disclose his or her subjective values. This obligation is all the more imperative for an African American writing about the times and the events in which he lived. One must always seek to maintain critical distance from the subject. However, cold detachment is not required to be factually correct and objective. Twenty years after my Coast Guard career ended, have given me sufficient distance to reflect soberly upon a subject that I find infinitely fascinating. That is to say, why did it take so long to allow African Americans to serve in the Coast Guard officer corps. Also, since I found it so easy to recruit Black male high school graduates to the Academy, why was I run out of that job after I had demonstrated that it could be done.
All history is spin. The history of the first Black cadets to enter the Coast Guard Academy is too complex and too serious to be left primarily to Coast Guard Public Information Officers whose first impulse is to make the Coast Guard look good and honorable. They would readily sacrifice truth and accuracy to do that. The exclusion of African Americans from the Academy from 1876 until 1962 is a tragic fact of American history. My memory and interpretation of this history would be even more serious flawed than it undoubted is, were it not for the official records that I kept of every significant event that occurred in my life as a Coast Guard officer. My perspective my be subject to debate, but my facts are irrefutable.
The segregation of Black enlisted men in the ranks and the exclusion of Blacks from the officer training programs were legally sanctioned by the Doctrine of Plessey v Ferguson and its Jim Crow laws that this Nation accepted until the late 1960s. I was born and raised within that system. For the first 17 years of my life I existed on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.
Were it not for President John F Kennedy, my class and status would have never afforded me an opportunity to attend the Coast Guard Academy, a previously all white institution. Try as I might to escape the psychological baggage of my early years of living in apartheid, this Blog tends to reflect the imprint of my early childhood in the segregated South. My recitation of what I view as facts my draw the ire of the casual white reader and bring forth accusations of lack of neutrality and bias.
My experience in the Coast Guard from 1968 to 1988, and the court-martial of Cadet Webster Smith helped me to understand why Black parents were so reluctant to hand over their sons to Coast Guard recruiters before I became the Chief of Minority Recruiting in 1972.








It appears that President George Bush has been invited to be the Graduation Speaker for the Class of 2007. Well, Mr. President in your remarks I urge you to grant a Presidential Pardon to Cadet Webster Smith. He has more in common with you than most of the other Cadets. He is a Texan, just as you. And, he has been railroaded. Even Pontius Pilate pardoned one convicted felon a year for the Jews. You have much more good old Christian charity in your heart than Pontius Pilate ever had. So, Mr. President unless you intend to grant a Presidential Pardon to Webster Smith, I urge you to walk away from this speaking invitation. Just walk away.



Just walk away.

Judge London Steverson
London Eugene Livingston Steverson (born March 13, 1947) was one of the first two African Americans to graduate from the United States Coast Guard Academy in 1968. Later, as chief of the newly formed Minority Recruiting Section of the United States Coast Guard (USCG), he was charged with desegregating the Coast Guard Academy by recruiting minority candidates. He retired from the Coast Guard in 1988 and in 1990 was appointed to the bench as a Federal Administrative Law Judge with the Office of Hearings and Appeals, Social Security Administration.

Early Life and Education
Steverson was born and raised in Millington, Tennessee, the oldest of three children of Jerome and Ruby Steverson. At the age of 5 he was enrolled in the E. A. Harrold elementary school in a segregated school system. He later attended the all black Woodstock High School in Memphis, Tennessee, graduating valedictorian.
A Presidential Executive Order issued by President Truman had desegregated the armed forces in 1948,[1] but the service academies were lagging in officer recruiting. President Kennedy specifically challenged the United States Coast Guard Academy to tender appointments to Black high school students. London Steverson was one of the Black student to be offered such an appointment, and when he accepted the opportunity to be part of the class of 1968, he became the second African American to enter the previously all-white military academy. On June 4, 1968 Steverson graduated from the Coast Guard Academy with a BS degree in Engineering and a commission as an ensign in the U.S. Coast Guard.
In 1974, while still a member of the Coast Guard, Steverson entered The National Law Center of The George Washington University and graduated in 1977 with a Juris Doctor of Laws Degree.

USCG Assignments.
Steverson's first duty assignment out of the Academy was in Antarctic research logistical support. In July 1968 he reported aboard the Coast Guard Cutter (CGC) Glacier [2] (WAGB-4), an icebreaker operating under the control of the U.S. Navy, and served as a deck watch officer and head of the Marine Science Department. He traveled to Antarctica during two patrols from July 1968 to August 1969, supporting the research operations of the National Science Foundation's Antarctic Research Project in and around McMurdo Station. During the 1969 patrol the CGC Glacier responded to an international distress call from the Argentine icebreaker General SanMartin, which they freed.
He received another military assignment from 1970 to 1972 in Juneau, Alaska as a Search and Rescue Officer. Before being certified as an Operations Duty Officer, it was necessary to become thoroughly familiar with the geography and topography of the Alaskan remote sites. Along with his office mate, Ltjg Herbert Claiborne "Bertie" Pell, the son of Rhode Island Senator Claiborne Pell, Steverson was sent on a familiarization tour of Coast Guard, Navy and Air Force bases. The bases visited were Base Kodiak, Base Adak Island, and Attu Island, in the Aleutian Islands.[3]
Steverson was the Duty Officer on September 4, 1971 when an emergency call was received that an Alaska Airlines Boeing 727 airline passenger plane was overdue at Juneau airport. This was a Saturday and the weather was foggy with drizzling rain. Visibility was less than one-quarter mile. The 727 was en route to Seattle, Washington from Anchorage, Alaska with a scheduled stop in Juneau. There were 109 people on board and there were no survivors. Steverson received the initial alert message and began the coordination of the search and rescue effort. In a matter of hours the wreckage from the plane, with no survivors, was located on the side of a mountain about five miles from the airport. For several weeks the body parts were collected and reassembled in a staging area in the National Guard Armory only a few blocks from the Search and Rescue Center where Steverson first received the distress broadcast.[4]. Later a full investigation with the National Transportation Safety Board determined that the cause of the accident was equipment failure.[5]
Another noteworthy item is Steverson's involvement as an Operations Officer during the seizure of two Russian fishing vessels, the Kolevan and the Lamut for violating an international agreement prohibiting foreign vessels from fishing in United States territorial waters. The initial attempts at seizing the Russian vessels almost precipitated an international incident when the Russian vessels refused to proceed to a U. S. port, and instead sailed toward the Kamchatka Peninsula. Russian MIG fighter planes were scrambled, as well as American fighter planes from Elmendorf Air Force Base before the Russian vessels changed course and steamed back
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