General Walter Bedell "Beetle" Smith was a senior officer of the United States Army who served as General Dwight D. Eisenhower's chief of staff at Allied Forces Headquarters (AFHQ) during the Tunisia Campaign and the Allied invasion of Italy in 1943, during World War II. He was Eisenhower's chief of staff at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) in the campaign in Western Europe from 1944 to 1945.
Walter Bedell Smith
Allied leaders in the Sicilian Campaign. General Dwight Eisenhower meets in North Africa with (foreground from left to right): Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder, General Sir Harold R.L.G. Alexander, Admiral Sir Andrew B. Cunningham, and (top row): Mr. Harold Macmillan, Major General W. Bedell Smith, and several unidentified British officers.
Secret Emissaries to Lisbon (left to right) Brigadier Kenneth W. D. Strong, Generale di Brigata Giuseppe Castellano, Smith, and Consul Franco Montanari, an official from the Italian Foreign Office.
Smith and his wartime secretary, Ruth Briggs, who was also Smith's executive assistant when he was a postwar ambassador to the Soviet Union.
Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force
Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force was the headquarters of the Commander of Allied forces in northwest Europe, from late 1943 until the end of World War II. US General Dwight D. Eisenhower was the commander in SHAEF throughout its existence. The position itself shares a common lineage with Supreme Allied Commander Europe and Atlantic, but they are different titles.
SHAEF commanders at a conference in London Left to right: Lieutenant General Omar N. Bradley, Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, General Sir Bernard Montgomery, Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, and Lieutenant General Walter Bedell Smith
