Leighton W. Smith Jr.

Leighton Warren Smith Jr.

Smith was born in Mobile, Alabama, on August 20, 1939, and graduated from the United States Naval Academy with the Class of 1962. He received his wings in January 1964.

Naval career

As a naval aviator, Smith flew

Commands

Smith's early

Smith's IFOR command in Bosnia was criticized by Richard Holbrooke for his refusal to use his authority to also perform nonmilitary implementation tasks, including arresting indicted war criminals:

Based on Shalikashvili's statement at White House meetings, Christopher and I had assumed that the IFOR commander would use his authority to do substantially more than he was obligated to do. The meeting with Smith shattered that hope. Smith and his British deputy, General Michael Walker, made clear that they intended to take a minimalist approach to all aspects of implementation other than force protection. Smith signaled this in his first extensive public statement to the Bosnian people, during a live call-in program on Pale Television — an odd choice for his first local media appearance. During the program, he answered a question in a manner that dangerously narrowed his own authority. He later told Newsweek about it with a curious pride.

One of the questions I was asked was, "Admiral, is it true that IFOR is going to arrest Serbs in the Serb suburbs of Sarajevo?" I said, "Absolutely not, I don't have the authority to arrest anybody."

This was an inaccurate way to describe IFOR's mandate. It was true IFOR was not supposed to make routine arrests of ordinary citizens. But IFOR had the authority to arrest indicted war criminals, and could also detain anyone who posed a threat to its forces. Knowing what the question meant, Smith had sent an unfortunate signal of reassurance to Karadžić – over his own network.^[3]

Later work

Smith retired from the US Navy on 1 October 1996. He served as a Senior Fellow at the Center for Naval Analyses, was President of Leighton Smith Associates and Vice President of Global Perspectives, Inc., both international consulting firms. He was Chairman of the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation, immediate past Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the United States Naval Academy Alumni Association and served on the Executive Committee of the Association of Naval Aviation. He was also on the National Advisory Council to the

Smith was a supporter of the

Smith has been one of the senior signatories of the March 31, 2009 letter urging the president to maintain the policy excluding homosexuals from the armed forces.^[5]

Death

Smith died at his home in Pinehurst, N.C. on November 28, 2023.^[6][7]

Awards and decorations

References