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by Erin E. Thompson, USAICoE Staff Historian
MAJ. GEN. DAVIS BECOMES ACSI
On Sep. 1, 1965, Maj. Gen. John J. Davis assumed the position of Assistant Chief of Staff, Intelligence (ACSI). His brief tenure as Army G-2 was the culmination of a distinguished career in military communications and intelligence and prefaced his final assignment as assistant director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) during tense negotiations between the United States and Soviet Union in the late 1960s.
John Joseph Davis was born in Leavenworth, Kansas, on Mar. 19, 1909. He applied for admission to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1927 and received his commission as a second lieutenant of field artillery on Jun. 11, 1931. Throughout the 1930s, Davis was assigned to intelligence and communications roles in various field artillery units. In March 1942, then Major Davis became commander of the 80th Field Artillery Battalion at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. A few months later, he was assigned as a tactics instructor at the Artillery School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and from 1943–1944, as communications instructor and director of the school’s Radio Communications Section.
In April 1944, Davis took command of the 244th Field Artillery Battalion, XII Corps, and deployed in support of General George Patton’s Third Army in Europe during the last year of the war. During his wartime service, Davis received the Legion of Merit, two Bronze Stars, two Air Medals, and the French Croix de Guerre. He completed his overseas service in September 1945 as the XII Corps assistant artillery commander.
Returning to the United States, Davis attended the Command and General Staff College, where he graduated in 1946. He returned to the Artillery School as assistant director and director of the Communications Department until June 1948. He then attended the Armed Forces Staff College and the Strategic Intelligence School, and in 1949, he became the Army attaché at the American embassy in Pretoria, South Africa, where he remained until June 1952.
With experience in intelligence, communications, and diplomacy, in 1953, then Colonel Davis became the director for plans and policy at the National Security Agency (NSA). In 1957, after a brief foray back into field artillery, he returned to Army intelligence as assistant chief of foreign intelligence in the office of the ACSI. He remained in this position until April 1961, when he returned to the NSA as assistant director of production, earning his first Distinguished Service Medal in 1965.
On Sep. 1, 1965, then Major General Davis became the ACSI. He assumed the role at a particularly tumultuous time, both at home and internationally. By mid-1965, the United States had officially committed to entering the Vietnam War. Meanwhile, reorganization of the counterintelligence command structure stateside led to the creation of the U.S. Army Intelligence Command in July 1965, which transferred control of many of the Army’s non-counterintelligence functions to Army G-2.
General Davis remained in the position until October 1966. As a lieutenant general, he then became assistant director of the ACDA and, between 1967–1970, served as the chief military advisor during the first round of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I). These negotiations resulted in the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, aimed at maintaining deterrence of nuclear weapons development. His work with the ACDA and SALT I negotiations earned him his second Distinguished Service Medal.
General Davis retired in 1970 after almost forty years of military service and was inducted into the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame in the inaugural class of 1988. He passed away on Aug. 22, 1997, at the age of eighty-eight and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
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| Date Taken: | 08.29.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 08.29.2025 14:43 |
| Story ID: | 546905 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 23 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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