He was drafted into the United States Army in April 1943 and in 1944 entered the aviation cadet program. In September 1944 he graduated from flying school and received his pilot wings and commission as a second lieutenant.
Huyser returned to Headquarters Fifteenth Air Force in January 1959 as assistant chief and then as chief, Combat Operations Branch. In July 1960 he became chief, Operations Plans Division. He entered the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, in August 1962. After his graduation in July 1963, he served as chief, Concepts Branch, Operations Plans Division, Headquarters Strategic Air Command, Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska.
Huyser returned to Headquarters SAC in April 1968 and was assigned to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, Operations, as director, command control, and in February 1970 he assumed duties as director of operations plans and chief, Single Integrated Operational Plans Division, Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff.
His principal involvement in the Vietnam War was administering the contingency war plans for SAC headquarters. He planned the B-52 missions, weaponeered the target boxes and executed the strikes. He also managed the SAC tanker support for the Southeast Asia area. He also flew B-52 combat missions over Vietnam and tanker support sorties out of Thailand.
Robert E. Huyser in retirement
In June 1972 Huyser was assigned to Headquarters U.S. Air Force, Washington, D.C., in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, Plans and Operations, as director of plans. In April 1973 he became deputy chief of staff, plans and operations. He participated in the decision-making processes that resulted in C-130 Hercules resources being assigned to the Military Airlift Command and the designation of the Military Airlift Command as the Department of Defense's third specified command.
At the request of Jimmy Carter and Ruhollah Khomeini in January 1979, while still EUCOM deputy, President Jimmy Carter sent Huyser to Iran. Sources disagree on the nature of his mission. According to Carter, Huyser, and American sources, he attempted to stabilize Iran during the turbulent early stages of the Iranian Revolution. While the option of a pro-Shah military coup still was a possibility, Huyser met with Iranian Armed Forces leaders (but not the Shah), and established meetings between them and Khomeini allies, for the purpose of agreeing on Shapour Bakhtiar's transitional government.[1] According to supporters of the Shah, (now confirmed after many years since the 1979 revolution), his goal was to undercut and disassociate with the Shah's government by pacifying the Iranian army from action and any attempts of a coup to protect the secretly American backed Khomeini Islamist government that ironically, betrayed America as well in its rise to power.[2] Shortly afterward, the Shah left Iran for exile and the Islamic Revolution took over the country. Huyser departed Iran on February 3, 1979, two days after Khomeini returned from exile in France and called for the expulsion of foreign military advisors.[3] In his memoir Mission to Tehran, Huyser called the mission "one that started with desperation and disunity and ended in disaster," but praised the performance of U.S. personnel.
Huyser published a book entitled Mission to Tehran in 1987.[6]
Awards and medals
Huyser was a command pilot and flew more than 5,000 hours in SAC bombers, nearly 2,000, hours in SAC tankers, about 1,400 hours in single engine jet aircraft and 1,500 hours in B-25, C-54, T-39 and various light aircraft.
In 1994 he was inducted into the Airlift/Tanker Association Hall of Fame.[7]
In 1996 the family created the General Dutch Huyser Outstanding Aircrew Member Award which is presented by the Airlift/Tanker Association at their annual convention.[8]
^Axworthy, Michael (2013). Revolutionary Iran : a history of the Islamic republic. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 1–3. ISBN978-0-19-932227-5. OCLC854910512.
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