In 1947 he became chief of the Research and Engineering Division at Headquarters Army Air Force. That October he was appointed Director of Research and Development under the deputy chief of staff for material at Headquarters U.S. Air Force, and the following September returned to Wright-Patterson as commandant of the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology. During the first year of the Korean War Craigie became vice commander of the Far East Air Forces in Tokyo, and for three months in 1951 served as the Air Force delegate on the United Nations Armistice Negotiations Team at the truce talks. In November 1951 he returned to U.S. Air Force Headquarters in Washington as Deputy Chief of Staff for Research and Development. He was promoted to lieutenant general July 5, 1952. In April 1954 he took command of NATO's Allied Air Forces Southern Europe (Italy, Greece and Turkey), at Naples, Italy.