Ira Eaker

General Ira Clarence Eaker (April 13, 1896 - August 6, 1987) was one of the principal architects of American strategic airpower. He commanded the VIII Bomber Command and subsequently the 8th Air Force in Britain from 1942 to early 1944, directing the daylight strategic bombing campaign over occupied Europe, then commanded the Mediterranean Allied Air Forces (MAAF) through the end of the war in Europe. After retirement from active duty in 1947 he moved into the defense industry and Washington policy circles, where he remained an influential figure until his death. He died at Malcolm Grow Medical Center, Andrews Air Force Base, on August 6, 1987, the same year as the federal investigation of The Finders.¹

Military Career

Eaker's wartime record is the most documented aspect of his career. He was the primary advocate for American daylight precision bombing as distinct from British nighttime area bombing, a strategic debate with enduring consequences for both the air war and postwar doctrine. He commanded the 8th U.S. Air Force in England from February 1942 until January 1944, when General Dwight D. Eisenhower arranged his transfer to command the MAAF in the Mediterranean over Eaker's objections. The command change was one of the contentious episodes of Allied air strategy. He was promoted to General (four stars) in 1945. He retired as Deputy Commander of the Army Air Forces in 1947.¹

His papers are held at the Library of Congress Manuscript Division (finding aid: findingaids.loc.gov/repositories/19/resources/2527), spanning 1917 to 1989, and constitute the primary biographical resource.

Postwar Career

After retirement Eaker served as vice president of Hughes Tool Company and Hughes Aircraft Company from 1947 to 1957, based first in Houston then California. From 1957 he moved to Washington D.C. as East Coast representative of Douglas Aircraft. He subsequently served in an advisory capacity with Hughes Aircraft from Washington, where, as his Library of Congress papers note, he "used his access to Defense Department officials to learn about policy and future expenditures" - the standard revolving-door function for retired senior officers in the postwar defense industry.¹

From 1964 he wrote a syndicated defense policy column distributed by Copley News Service to as many as 700 papers. In 1972 he became founding president of the United States Strategic Institute (USSI), a Washington defense policy organization that published the journal Strategic Review; other founding USSI directors included retired Admiral John McCain Sr.¹

His postwar role was firmly within the defense-industry and policy-advocacy sphere rather than covert operations. No declassified record connects him to CIA programs or clandestine activities beyond the standard access to Defense Department officials that his positions provided.

Connection to Marion Pettie

An unsigned three-page investigative memo of unknown provenance, circulated among researchers studying The Finders in the mid-1990s, claims that in 1946 Marion Pettie served as Eaker's chauffeur while Eaker was commanding general of Army Air Forces in the Mediterranean, and that newspaper publisher Charles Marsh subsequently arranged counterintelligence training for Pettie through connections established during this service. The memo identifies the alleged arrangement as a Colonel Leonard N. Weigner operation that directed Pettie to embed within Washington counterculture circles as an intelligence asset.²

No corroborating primary source exists for this claim. Eaker's Library of Congress papers and the documented record of his 1946 activities do not mention Pettie. The claim cannot be ruled out on its face given Eaker's Washington presence in the relevant period, but it rests entirely on an anonymous document of unknown provenance.¹²