Singlaub was born in
Independence, California, on July 10, 1921. After graduating from
Van Nuys High School in 1939, he attended the
University of California, Los Angeles, Singlaub demanded proper food and medical care for the POWs, who the Japanese were still treating as prisoners. In 1951, during the
Korean War, Singlaub, was CIA deputy chief of station in Seoul where he was the first to demonstrate
high-altitude military parachuting. As a master parachutist he wanted to use bomber aircraft for agent drops in CIA covert-action operations. Singlaub used the Air Force
B-26 out of a
FOB on
Yeongheungdo Island and re-rigged the bomb bay as a jump platform. After he conducted a series of proof of concept test jumps, Singlaub borrowed an Air Force
L-19 Bird Dog and made a series of high altitude low-opening test jumps over the
Han River. After his time in Korea, Singlaub headed CIA operations in postwar
Manchuria during the Chinese Communist revolution, managed the secret war along the
Ho Chi Minh trail in the
Kingdom of Laos and
Vietnam, worked with the
Contras in
Nicaragua, and Afghan resistance during the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He graduated from the
Army Command and General Staff College in 1954 and the
Air War College in 1960. Because of the increasing use of helicopters in Special Forces operations, he decided to attend flight school at
Fort Rucker as a fifty-year-old
brigadier general in 1971. In 1977, while Singlaub was chief of staff of U.S. forces in South Korea, he publicly criticized President
Jimmy Carter's proposal to withdraw U.S. troops from the Korean peninsula. On May 21, 1977, Carter relieved him of duty for overstepping his bounds and failing to respect the President's authority as
Commander-in-Chief. Less than a year later, Singlaub again publicly questioned President Carter's national security policies, this time during a lecture at
Georgia Tech, and was forced to retire on June 1, 1978. The
U.S. Army Special Operations Command presented its first John Singlaub Award in 2016 for "courageous actions ... off the battlefield." After retiring from the army, Singlaub, with
John Rees and Democratic Congressman from Georgia,
Larry McDonald founded the
Western Goals Foundation. According to
The Associated Press, it was intended to "blunt subversion, terrorism, and communism" by filling the gap "created by the disbanding of the
House Un-American Activities Committee". Prior to the collapse of the
Berlin Wall and
Marxism–Leninism in the
Soviet Union in 1991, Singlaub was founder in 1981 of the
United States Council for World Freedom, the U.S. chapter of the
World Anti-Communist League (WACL). The chapter became involved with the Iran–Contra affair, with Associated Press reporting that, "Singlaub's private group became the public cover for the White House operation". The WACL was described by former member
Geoffrey Stewart-Smith as allegedly a "largely a collection of Nazis, Fascists, anti-Semites, sellers of forgeries, vicious racialists, and corrupt self-seekers." Singlaub is credited with purging the organization of these types and making it respectable. U.S. Army General
William Westmoreland described Singlaub as a "true military professional" and "a man of honest, patriotic conviction and courage." Congressman
Henry J. Hyde (Judiciary, Foreign Affairs, and Intelligence Committees), described Singlaub as "a brave man, a thorough patriot, and a keen observer"; someone who had been "in the center of almost every controversial military action since World War II." Active for 40 years in overt and covert operations, he had private and secret interviews with many military and government leaders worldwide. He personally knew
William Casey,
Director of Central Intelligence during the
Reagan Administration, as well as
Oliver North, and was involved in the
Iran–Contra affair. Singlaub was President Reagan's administrative chief liaison in the Contra supply effort to oppose Moscow's and
Fidel Castro's advances in El Salvador and Nicaragua during the
Cold War and their support for armed
Marxist revolutionary guerrilla movements. Through his chairmanship of the world Anti-Communist League (WACL) and its U.S. chapter, the U.S. Council for World Freedom (USCWF), he enlisted Members of the
US Congress from both political parties, Washington, D.C. policymakers, retired U.S. military officials, paramilitary groups, foreign governments, and American
think tanks and conservatives in the Contra cause. He often met on
Capitol Hill with members of the U.S. Congress, including Congressman
Charlie Wilson (D-TX) about U.S. support and funding for the Contras and anti-
communist resistance forces in
Afghanistan opposed to the
Red Army invasion of
Kabul in 1979. As of 2014, he lived in
Franklin, Tennessee. He was a member of the advisory council of the
Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. Singlaub was the honorary vice president of London's
Special Forces Club. He was the chairman of The Jedburgh Group and president of the non-profit organization America's Future, Inc. In January 2020 Singlaub used the "America's Future" of
Phyllis Schlafly to plead with
Attorney General William Barr to "free
Mike Flynn, drop the charges". He
turned 100 in July 2021, and died on January 29, 2022. ==Coalition to Salute America's Heroes==