Charles Erwin Wilson

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Charles Erwin Wilson bigraphy, stories - American secretary of Defence

Charles Erwin Wilson : biography

July 18, 1890 – September 26, 1961

Charles Erwin Wilson (July 18, 1890 – September 26, 1961), American businessman and politician, was United States Secretary of Defense from 1953 to 1957 under President Eisenhower. Known as "Engine Charlie","10 Best Quotes", Car and Driver, 1/88, p.49. he previously worked as CEO for General Motors. In the wake of the Korean War, he cut the defense budget significantly.

Secretary of Defense

Wilson’s nomination sparked a controversy that erupted during his confirmation hearings before the Senate Armed Services Committee, based on his large stockholdings in General Motors. Reluctant to sell the stock, valued at the time at more than $2.5 million, Wilson agreed to do so under committee pressure. During the hearings, when asked if he could make a decision as Secretary of Defense that would be adverse to the interests of General Motors, Wilson answered affirmatively. But he added that he could not conceive of such a situation "because for years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa". This statement has been misquoted endlessly, in the inverted form of "What’s good for General Motors is good for the country" as an example of the self-centered attitude of executives. Although Wilson tried for years to correct the misquote, he was reported at the time of his retirement in 1957 to have accepted the popular impression.

Wilson was finally confirmed as Secretary of Defense by a Senate vote of 77 to 6, and began his duties in the Pentagon with his standing somewhat diminished by the confirmation debate.

Both Wilson and Eisenhower entered office committed to reorganizing the Department of Defense. They succeeded in securing from Congress approval in June 1953 of Reorganization Plan No. 6, which made changes in OSD, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the chain of command. Wilson welcomed the reorganization plan, which became effective on June 30, 1953, as facilitating more efficient management of the Department of Defense. He looked on the assistant secretaries as his "vice presidents" and tried to run the Pentagon like an industrial corporation. Wilson took advantage of the reorganization to decentralize administration, giving the service secretaries more responsibility and importance. In his first annual report, he noted that the service secretaries were his principal assistants; decentralizing operational responsibility to them would make for effective exercise of civilian authority throughout DoD. In July 1954, to complement the 1953 reorganization, Wilson issued a directive to the JCS, the most important provision of which stated that "the Joint Staff work of each of the Chiefs of Staff shall take priority over all other duties", namely their tasks as chiefs of individual services. The directive also clarified the role of the JCS chairman and his authority over the Joint Staff while making clear that assignment of major tasks to the Joint Staff was the prerogative of the full JCS.

Internal reorganization was only one of several major changes during Wilson’s tenure, foremost among them the "New Look" defense concept. Eisenhower had criticized the Truman 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 terms laid down by the Soviets. The president entered office with strong convictions about the need to reorient the nation’s security policy, convictions reflecting his interest in maintaining a staunch defense while cutting 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 Arthur W. Radford, chairman; General Matthew B. Ridgway, Army chief of staff; General Nathan F. Twining, Air Force chief of staff; and Admiral Robert B. Carney, chief of naval operations) to prepare a paper on overall defense policy. Although the JCS paper did not recommend any fundamental changes, the National Security Council in October 1953 adopted a key tenet of the New Look that a large-scale limited war or a general war would likely be fought with nuclear weapons. Eisenhower formally presented the New Look in his State of the Union message in January 1954 and Secretary Wilson helped to explain it. More defense for less money was possible, he said. With new weapons and techniques and ready reserves of troops and materiel, the United States could support capable military forces within budget allocations that Congress was willing to provide.