Editing A. Peter Dewey

{{Short description|United States Army officer and journalist}}
{{Infobox military person
|birth_date      = {{birth date|1916|10|8|mf=y}}
|birth_place     = [[Chicago, Illinois]], U.S.
|death_date      = {{death date and age|mf=yes|1945|9|26|1916|10|8}}
|death_place     = [[Saigon]], Vietnam
|image           =
|caption         = Albert Peter Dewey
|nickname        = 
|serviceyears    = [[Polish Army in France (1939-40)|Polish Army]], 1940;<br /> [[United States Army]], 1942–1945
|rank= [[Lieutenant Colonel (United States)|Lieutenant Colonel]]
|branch = [[Polish Military Ambulance Corps]]<br />U.S.[[Air Transport Command]], in Africa<br />U.S.[[Office of Strategic Services]] (OSS)
|unit            = [[Office of Strategic Services]]
|battles         = [[World War II]]<br />[[Battle of France]] (with the Polish Army)<br />[[Operation Dragoon]]<br />[[Indochina Wars|Vietnam Conflict]]
|awards          = [[Silver Star]]<br />[[Legion of Merit]]<br />[[Croix de guerre 1939–1945|Croix de Guerre]] avec Palmes<br />Chevalier de la [[Légion d'honneur]]<br />[[Croix du Combattant]]<br />[[Order of Polonia Restituta]]<br />[[Tunisia]]n [[Order of Glory (Tunisia)|Order of Glory]]
|laterwork       = 
}}
'''Albert Peter Dewey''' (October 8, 1916 – September 26, 1945) was an American [[Office of Strategic Services]] operative shot to death in a case of mistaken identity by Communist aligned [[Viet Minh]] troops on September 26, 1945.<ref name=SpencerT-2011-p289-290>{{cite book |last=Tucker |first=Spencer |title=The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History, Volume 1 |year=2011 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-85109-960-3 |pages=289–290 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=Fever in Saigon |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |location=New York |date=October 8, 1945 |publisher=Time, Inc. }}</ref><ref name="The New York Times">{{Cite news |title=Indo-China Rebels Kill U.S. Officer: Slay Lieut. Col. A. Peter Dewey From Ambush – British Arrest Commander of Japanese Indo-China Rebels Kill U S. Officer From Ambush Near Headquarters Dewey's Companion Escapes Saigon Without Power Served With Polish Army French Protest on Chinese |page=1 |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |location=New York, N.Y. |date=September 28, 1945}}</ref>  Dewey was the first American fatality in French Indochina, killed during the [[War in Vietnam (1945–46)|1945 Vietnamese uprising]].

==Early life and education==
The younger son of Congressman [[Charles S. Dewey]] and his wife, Marie Suzette de Marigny Hall Dewey,<ref name=CassJ-CDT-1942-08-01>{{Cite news |first=Judith |last=Cass |title=A. Peter Dewey Takes Bride in Capital Today |page=13 |publisher=[[Chicago Daily Tribune]] |location=Chicago, Il. |date=August 1, 1942 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=MRS. C.S. Dewey, Red Cross Leader; Former Director in Chicago and Washington Dies – Wife of Ex-Legislator |page=21 |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |location= New York, NY |date=December 14, 1957 }}</ref> and also a distant relative of New York Governor [[Thomas E. Dewey]],<ref>{{cite book |author=Morgan, Ted |title=Valley of Death: The Tragedy at Dien Bien Phu that Led America into the Vietnam War |location=New York |publisher=Random House |year=2010 |page=66 }}</ref> Dewey was born in Chicago. He was educated in Switzerland at [[Institut Le Rosey]], before attending at [[St. Paul's School (Concord, New Hampshire)]]. He graduated from [[Yale University]], where he studied French history and was a member of the [[Berzelius (secret society)|Berzelius]] Secret Society along with friends such as [[William Warren Scranton]].<ref>[http://images.library.yale.edu/madid/oneItem.aspx?id=1772773&q=&q1=&q2=&qc1=&qc2=&qf1=&qf2=&qn=5565&qo=&qm=&qs=&sid=&qx= The Manuscripts and Archives Digital Images Database (MADID)<!-- bot-generated title -->] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303231452/http://images.library.yale.edu/madid/oneItem.aspx?id=1772773&q=&q1=&q2=&qc1=&qc2=&qf1=&qf2=&qn=5565&qo=&qm=&qs=&sid=&qx= |date=2016-03-03 }} at mssa.library.yale.edu</ref> Later, Dewey also attended the [[University of Virginia School of Law]].

==Newspaper work==
After his graduation from Yale in 1939, Dewey worked as a journalist  for the  ''[[Chicago Daily News]]'' in its Paris bureau.

Dewey later worked for family friend [[Nelson Rockefeller]] and his [[Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs]]. Rockefeller once sent him to France to meet secretly with General [[Charles de Gaulle]].

==Battle of France==
While reporting on the German invasion of France for the ''Daily News'', Dewey became more directly involved in the war.

In May 1940, during the [[Battle of France]], Dewey enlisted as a lieutenant in the Polish Military Ambulance Corps with the [[Polish Army in France (1939-40)|Polish Army]] fighting in France.<ref name="The New York Times"/><ref>{{cite news |title=Polish Embassy Party Honors Peter Dewey |page=14 |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |location=Washington, D.C. |date =March 25, 1941 }}</ref> Following the defeat of the French army, Dewey escaped through Spain to Portugal, where he was interned for a short time.

==Marriage and family==
On August 1, 1942, Dewey married Nancy Weller.<ref name=CassJ-CDT-1942-08-01/><ref>{{Cite news |title=Miss Nancy Weller Engaged to be Wed; Madeira School Alumna Will Be Bride of A. Peter Dewey |page=11 |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |location=New York, N.Y. |date=May 18, 1942 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=Miss Nancy Weller Is Wed To Lieut. A. Peter Dewey |page=S2 |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |location=Washington, D.C. |date=August 2, 1942 }}</ref>  The couple had one child, a daughter,  Mrs. Nancy (Charles) Hoppin.<ref>{{Cite news |title= Miss Dewey Wed to Robert Harrison; 1962 Debutante and Harvard Graduate Marry in Jersey |page=92 |newspaper= [[The New York Times]] |location=New York, N.Y. |date=October 22, 1967 }}</ref><ref name="Topping 2005 3–4">{{Cite news |first=Seymour |last=Topping |journal=O.S.S. Society Newsletter |title=Vietnamese Historian Recalls Untold Story of Tragic Murder of Peter Dewey |pages=3–4 |publisher=The O.S.S. Society, Inc. |location=McLean, VA. |date=Summer 2005 }}</ref> Dewey's widow, Nancy, married John Pierrepont in 1950.<ref name=Pierrepont>{{cite news|last=Forrest|first=Gillian|title=Mrs. Dewey to Marry Pierrepont|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2206&dat=19500226&id=9jIuAAAAIBAJ&pg=2993,6552581|access-date=18 April 2013|newspaper=The Miami News|date=26 February 1950}}{{Dead link|date=July 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

Dewey's nephew David Dewey Alger, a descendant of [[Michigan]] political scion [[Russell A. Alger]],  was killed in the [[9/11]] attacks on the [[World Trade Center (1973-2001)|World Trade Center]].<ref>{{cite news |last=Martin |first=Douglas |title=David Alger Is Dead at 57; Manager of Mutual Funds |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/25/business/david-alger-is-dead-at-57-manager-of-mutual-funds.html|access-date=2011-09-08 |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=September 25, 2001}}</ref>

==Office of Strategic Services==
On August 10, 1944, Dewey parachuted into southern France as the leader of a 10-man team from the United States [[Office of Strategic Services]] (OSS). Operating behind enemy lines for six weeks, he transmitted intelligence reports on German troop movements. For his service, General [[William "Wild Bill" Donovan]] personally awarded him the Legion of Merit and the French gave him the Legion of Honor and a second Croix de Guerre.<ref name="morgan67">Morgan, p. 67.</ref>

Dewey arrived on September 4, 1945, in Saigon to head a seven-man OSS team "to represent American interests" and collect intelligence.<ref name="morgan67" />  Working with the [[Viet Minh]], he arranged the repatriation of 4,549 Allied POWs, including 240 Americans, from two Japanese camps near Saigon,<ref>Morgan, p. 68.</ref> code named Project Embankment. Because the British occupation forces who had arrived to accept the Japanese surrender were short of troops, they armed French POWs on September 22 to protect the city from a potential Viet Minh attack. In taking control of the city, the French soldiers were quick to beat or shoot Vietnamese who resisted the reestablishment of French authority.

Dewey complained about the abuse to the British commander, General [[Douglas Gracey]], who took exception to Dewey's objections and declared Dewey ''[[persona non grata]]''. Adhering to strict tradition, Gracey prohibited anyone but general officers from flying flags from their vehicles. Dewey had wanted to fly an American flag for easy identification among the Viet Minh, who Dewey claimed were only concerned about attacking the French. The jeep he rode in prior to his death had a flag wrapped around a pole that was unidentifiable.<ref>{{cite book|last=Lee|first=Clark|title=One Last Look Around|date=1947|publisher=Duell, Sloane and Pearce|page=211|chapter=French Colonials Are Sad Sacks}}</ref>

On the night of September 24–25, Capt. Joseph R. Coolidge IV, part of the OSS team in Saigon, became the first post-World War II U.S. casualty in Vietnam when he was shot and critically wounded in a Viet Minh ambush in [[Thủ Đức]], outside of Saigon. He was rescued by the Japanese, treated at a British field hospital and airlifted out of Vietnam to Ceylon by the USAAF.<ref name=Williams>{{cite book|last=Williams|first=Kenneth|title=The US Air Force in Southeast Asia and the Vietnam War A Narrative Chronology Volume I: The Early Years through 1959|publisher=Air Force History and Museums Program|year=2019|url=https://media.defense.gov/2019/Feb/22/2002092352/-1/-1/1/USAF%20Vietnam%20Chronology%20v1.pdf|page=27}}{{PD-notice}}</ref>

On September 26 because the airplane scheduled to fly Dewey out did not arrive on time at [[Tan Son Nhat International Airport]], he returned for a lunch meeting with war correspondents [[Bill Downs]] and [[Jim McGlincy]] at the villa that OSS had requisitioned in Saigon.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Lee|first1=Clark|title=One Last Look Around|date=1947|publisher=Duell, Sloan and Pearce|pages=200–211|chapter=French Colonials Are Sad Sacks|quote=The following day Colonel Dewey invited two of our party, Bill Downs and Jim McGlincy, to lunch at the O.S.S. house on the northern edge of Saigon. They drove out...and sat in the patio to have a drink and wait for Dewey to return from the airport. Five minutes later there was heavy firing up the road, and an American officer came running toward the OSS villa which was also, in effect, American Army headquarters in Saigon. The officer halted every few yards to crouch and fire his .45 back down the road at some invisible pursuers.}}</ref> As he neared the villa, he was shot in the head in an ambush by Viet Minh troops. Dewey's jeep overturned, and Dewey's subordinate, Captain Herbert Bluechel, escaped without serious injury, pursued by Viet Minh soldiers.<ref>Morgan, pp. 67–70.</ref>

The Viet Minh afterward claimed that their troops mistook him for a Frenchman after he had spoken to them in French. Bluechel later recalled that Dewey had shaken his fist and yelled at three Vietnamese soldiers in French while driving back to headquarters.<ref>[https://archive.today/20120714221218/http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/org.wgbh.mla:d8e55cbafa25941c5486c83b72e941d30ae01ec4 "Interview with Herbert Bluechel, 1981"]. April 23, 1981. WGBH Media Library & Archives. Retrieved 2010-11-17.</ref> According to Vietnamese historian [[:vi:Trần Văn Giàu|Trần Văn Giàu]], Dewey's body was dumped in a nearby river and was never recovered.<ref name="Topping 2005 3–4"/><ref name=Williams/> Another version is that his body was first hidden in a well and then reburied in nearby village of An Phu Dong. Reportedly, [[Ho Chi Minh]] sent a letter of condolence about Dewey's death to U.S. President [[Harry S. Truman]] while also ordering a search for the colonel's body.<ref name="Topping 2005 3–4" /> His body was never recovered.

A. Peter Dewey was noted for his prediction over the future of the [[First Indochina War]] and the [[Vietnam War]]: "''Cochinchina is burning, the French and the British are being destroyed there and we are forced to get out of Southeast Asia''" due to recent conflict between France and the [[Viet Minh]].

==Memorials==
Dewey is not listed on the [[Vietnam Veterans Memorial]] in [[Washington, D.C.]] because the [[United States Department of Defense]] has ruled that the war officially started, from a U.S. perspective, on November 1, 1955, after the U.S. took over following the French defeat at [[Dien Bien Phu]].

Dewey's name is listed on the [[American Battle Monuments Commission]]'s Tablets of the Missing at [[Manila American Cemetery and Memorial]] as "Major Albert P. Dewey."<ref>[http://www.abmc.gov/search-abmc-burials-and-memorializations/detail/WWII_104277#.VD_osIvF8Q4 American Battle Monuments Commission] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141022005513/http://www.abmc.gov/search-abmc-burials-and-memorializations/detail/WWII_104277 |date=2014-10-22 }}.</ref> His name is also listed as a [[cenotaph]] on his parents' grave at [[Arlington National Cemetery]].<ref>[https://ancexplorer.army.mil/publicwmv/#/arlington-national/search/results/1/CgVkZXdleRIHY2hhcmxlcw--/ Arlington Cemetery]</ref>

Dewey is also remembered in an inscription on one of the walls in the National Cathedral, Washington, DC, which states that he was killed in action Indo-China 1945.

Dewey is also commemorated in a side chapel in [[Bayeux Cathedral]].

After his death, Dewey's non-fiction book, ''As They Were'', about life in Paris before the war,<ref>{{cite book|last1=Dewey|first1=A. Peter|title=As They Were|url=https://archive.org/details/AsTheyWere|date=1946|publisher=The Beechhurst Press|location=New York|oclc= 3682885 }}</ref> was published with the help of  his widow Nancy and the Rockefeller family.

Also, 2005's ''Fatal Crossroads: A Novel of Vietnam 1945'' is based on Dewey's time and death in Vietnam and written by journalist and Dewey family friend [[Seymour Topping]]. Topping dedicated the book to Dewey and his O.S.S. colleagues. He also had returned to visit Vietnam with Dewey's daughter Nancy and her husband.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Topping|first1=Seymour|author-link1=Seymour Topping|title=Fatal Crossroads: A novel of Vietnam, 1945|date=2005|publisher=Signature Books|location=White Plains, NY|isbn=978-1891936692|oclc=56599576}}</ref>

==References==
{{Portal|Biography}}
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* [http://images.library.yale.edu/madid/oneItem.aspx?id=2699525&q=Peter%20Dewey&q1=&q2=&qc1=&qc2=&qf1=&qf2=&qn=&qo=&qm=&qs=&sid=&qx= College photo] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161220151619/http://images.library.yale.edu/madid/oneItem.aspx?id=2699525&q=Peter%20Dewey&q1=&q2=&qc1=&qc2=&qf1=&qf2=&qn=&qo=&qm=&qs=&sid=&qx= |date=2016-12-20 }}. – Yale University Library.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20080905141333/http://www.osssociety.org/pdfs/oss_summer_05.pdf Peter Dewey in the OSS Society Newsletter]. – Summer 2005. – pp.&nbsp;3–4. – (Adobe Acrobat *.PDF)
* Bio and links to PDF's of documents surrounding A. Peter Dewey [http://www.geocities.com/mithlean/VietMIA1.htm First American MIA in Vietnam]. ([https://web.archive.org/web/20091021193657/http://geocities.com/mithlean/VietMIA1.htm Archived]. 2009-10-24)

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