Fleet Admiral William Smillie: Starfleet Commander-in-Chief in 2293 during the Praxis Explosion and assassination of the Klingon Chancellor. With Captain Spock and Ambassador Sarek, directed overtures to Chancellor Gorkon after the explosion of Praxis, their key energy facility at the time. With the fallout of that explosion Smillie saw an opportunity to end the aggressive stance both races had maintained and sent Captain Kirk and the Enterprise to escort Gorkon for an historic meeting on Earth. After the assassination of Gorkon seemingly at the hands of Kirk and the Enterprise and the subsequent arrest of Kirk and Dr. McCoy Smillie brought forward to the Federation President a daring rescue mission (name Operation Retrieve) to get Kirk off of Rura Penthe, but the President did not want to risk a war over Kirk and McCoy. Smillie attended the Kithomer Conference, and discovered that the Klingon “assassin” that had been killed there was in fact Colonel West of Starfleet.
Admiral Smillie appeared in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. His last name is from the novelization by J.M. Dillard. The events surrounding Operation Retrieve come from the Director’s Cut.