Charles Erwin Wilson
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Charles Wilson | |
---|---|
5th United States Secretary of Defense | |
In office January 28, 1953 – October 8, 1957 | |
President | Dwight D. Eisenhower |
Preceded by | Robert A. Lovett |
Succeeded by | Neil H. McElroy |
Personal details | |
Born | Minerva, Ohio, U.S. | July 18, 1890
Died | September 26, 1961 Norwood, Louisiana, U.S. | (aged 71)
Political party | Republican[citation needed] |
Spouse | Jessie Curtis |
Education | Carnegie Mellon University (BS) |
Charles Erwin Wilson (July 18, 1890 – September 26, 1961) was an American engineer and businessman who served as United States Secretary of Defense from 1953 to 1957 under President Dwight D. Eisenhower.[1] Known as "Engine Charlie",[2] he was previously the president and chief executive officer of General Motors. In the wake of the Korean War, he cut the defense budget significantly.
Early life and career
Wilson was born in
. Wilson married Jessie Ann Curtis on September 11, 1912. They had five children.General Motors career
In 1919, Wilson became chief engineer and sales manager of
Secretary of Defense
Confirmation
Wilson's nomination sparked a controversy that erupted during his confirmation hearings before the
Wilson was finally confirmed as Secretary of Defense by a Senate vote of 77 to 6 and began his duties in the Pentagon.
Tenure
Both Wilson and Eisenhower entered office committed to reorganizing the
Internal reorganization was only one of several major changes during Wilson's tenure, the most important being the "New Look" defense concept. Eisenhower had criticized Truman's policies during the 1952 campaign, arguing that they were reactive rather than positive and that they forced the United States to compete with the Soviet Union on the latter's terms. Eisenhower entered office with strong convictions about the need to reorient the nation's security policy by maintaining a staunch defense while decreasing government expenditures and balancing the budget.
The president inaugurated planning for the New Look in July 1953 by asking the incoming members of the JCS (Admiral
The major features of the New Look included greater reliance on nuclear weapons, using the advantage the United States had over the Soviet Union in such weapons; elevation of strategic air power, the major means to deliver nuclear weapons, to a more important position (not an expansion in the number of
Although the Eisenhower administration generally adhered to the New Look throughout Wilson's term, the policy remained controversial. Some critics maintained that it made impossible the fighting of a limited non-nuclear war. The Army and the Navy felt that the increased emphasis on air power and nuclear weapons represented a repudiation the concept of "balanced forces" in which individual service programs were balanced against overall requirements. Implicit in the policy was rejection of the idea that a general war or a crisis with the USSR was imminent (to occur when the Soviets achieved offensive nuclear capability against the United States). Wilson pointed out frequently that defense policy should be long-term and not based on short-term projections of Soviet-American relations. "Military expenditures," he observed, "must be adequate, but not so great that they will become an intolerable burden which will harm the social and economic fabric of our country. True security cannot be founded on arms and arms alone."
Wilson worked hard to reduce the defense budget, which meant some immediate cutbacks in fiscal year 1953 funds and a concerted effort to economize in subsequent years. Total obligational authority approved by Congress during Wilson's tenure decreased significantly at first and then began to creep back up, but it remained lower than the Truman administration's last budgets, inflated because of the
Its standing threatened by the New Look, the Army questioned the wisdom of reliance on "massive retaliation" and strategic air power to the neglect of other force elements. Wilson reportedly observed that the United States "can't afford to fight limited wars. We can only afford to fight a big war, and if there is one, that is the kind it will be." However, by 1955 the Army and, later that decade, the Navy, departed from their emphasis on preparation for total war by urging the need to prepare for limited war, non-global conflicts restricted in geographical area, force size, and weapons although tactical nuclear weapons were not ruled out. Generals Ridgway and Taylor stressed the need to have a variety of forces available and equipped to fight different kinds of war from a local non-nuclear war to a global strategic nuclear conflict. They rejected the notion that limited wars would occur only in less-developed areas and argued that such conflicts might occur in NATO as well.
The Army received indirect support from such critics of massive retaliation as
Increased competition among the services resulting from the New Look compelled Wilson to deal with the perennially troublesome question of service roles and missions, complicated by the introduction of new weapons, especially missiles. He noted in his semi-annual report at the end of FY 1956 that the services, which had eight categories of
On March 18, 1957, Wilson issued a directive to clarify his earlier decisions on the Army-Air Force use of aircraft for tactical purposes. He made no major changes from the previous division of responsibility but provided a more detailed and specific listing of those functional areas for which the Army could procure its own aircraft and those for which it would rely on the Air Force.
Although Wilson found it necessary to clarify service roles and missions, he did not press for extensive further unification of the armed forces. He established in February 1956 an office of special assistant to the Secretary of Defense for guided missiles but made few other changes after implementation of Reorganization Plan No. 6 in 1953. When asked in 1957 about persistent demands for further unification, Wilson responded, "It's an oversimplification in the false hope that you could thus wash out the problems if you put the people all in the same uniform and that then they wouldn't disagree over what should be done. Of course, they would."
Wilson, a folksy, honest, and outspoken man, sometimes got into trouble because of casual remarks. In January 1957, for example, he referred to enlistees in the
Wilson indicated his intention to retire from office shortly after the start of the second Eisenhower term and left on October 8, 1957. Eisenhower noted when Wilson stepped down that under him, "the strength of our security forces has not only been maintained but has been significantly increased" and that he had managed the Defense Department "in a manner consistent with the requirements of a strong, healthy national economy."[6]
On October 9, 1957, Eisenhower presented Wilson with the Medal of Freedom.
Human experimentation
While serving as Secretary of Defense, Wilson enacted stronger rules against
Wilson wrote, "By reason of the basic medical responsibility in connection with the development of defense of all types against atomic, biological and/or chemical warfare agents, Armed Services personnel and/or civilians on duty at installations engaged in such research shall be permitted to actively participate in all phases of the program."[7]
Jonathan Moreno and Susan Lederer wrote in a 1996 issue of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal that the Wilson Memo remained classified until 1975, limiting its availability to researchers. They found the Air Force and Army tried to implement the rules but found spotty compliance in actual Pentagon research.[citation needed]
'Dynamic Programming'
Mathematician
“I spent the Fall quarter (of 1950) at RAND. My first task was to find a name for multistage decision processes. An interesting question is, Where did the name, dynamic programming, come from? The 1950s were not good years for mathematical research. We had a very interesting gentleman in Washington named Wilson. He was Secretary of Defense, and he actually had a pathological fear and hatred of the word research. I’m not using the term lightly; I’m using it precisely. His face would suffuse, he would turn red, and he would get violent if people used the term research in his presence. You can imagine how he felt, then, about the term mathematical. The RAND Corporation was employed by the Air Force, and the Air Force had Wilson as its boss, essentially. Hence, I felt I had to do something to shield Wilson and the Air Force from the fact that I was really doing mathematics inside the RAND Corporation. What title, what name, could I choose? In the first place I was interested in planning, in decision making, in thinking. But planning, is not a good word for various reasons. I decided therefore to use the word “programming”. I wanted to get across the idea that this was dynamic, this was multistage, this was time-varying. I thought, let’s kill two birds with one stone. Let’s take a word that has an absolutely precise meaning, namely dynamic, in the classical physical sense. It also has a very interesting property as an adjective, and that it’s impossible to use the word dynamic in a pejorative sense. Try thinking of some combination that will possibly give it a pejorative meaning. It’s impossible. Thus, I thought dynamic programming was a good name. It was something not even a Congressman could object to. So I used it as an umbrella for my activities.”[8]
Later life and death
After he left the Pentagon, Wilson returned to Michigan, where he devoted his time to business and family affairs. He died in Norwood, Louisiana, and was interred at the Acacia Park Cemetery, a Masonic cemetery in Beverly Hills, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit.
Nickname
Charles Erwin Wilson should not be confused with
References
- ^ "Charles E. Wilson - Dwight D. Eisenhower Administration". Office of the Secretary of Defense - Historical Office.
- ^ "10 Best Quotes", Car and Driver, 1/88, p. 49.
- ^ "Business Cabinet". Life. Vol. 34, no. 3. January 19, 1953. p. 108. Retrieved 3 February 2017.
- ISBN 978-1-4000-6964-4.
- ^ Hyde, Justin (September 14, 2008). "GM's 'Engine Charlie' Wilson learned to live with a misquote". Detroit Free Press. Retrieved September 3, 2012.
- ^ "Quoted almost directly from Defense Department Biography of Charles E. Wilson".
- ^ [1] Archived March 24, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Hyde, Justin (September 14, 2008), GM's 'Engine Charlie' Wilson learned to live with a misquote, retrieved 28 November 2022
- ^ Hyde, Justin (September 14, 2008). "GM's 'Engine Charlie' Wilson learned to live with a misquote". Detroit Free Press. Retrieved 15 December 2015.
- Biography
- Charles E. Wilson Ohio Historical Marker
- The American Presidency Project - Citation Accompanying the Medal of Freedom Presented to Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson. - October 9, 1957