Charles Wilson (Texas politician)

All you want to know about Charles Wilson (Texas politician)

For other people with the same name, see Charles Wilson.
Charles Wilson
Charles Wilson (Texas politician)
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Texas's 2nd district
In office
January 3, 1973 – October 8, 1996
Preceded by John Dowdy
Succeeded by Jim Turner
Born June 1, 1933 (1933-06-01) (age 75)
Trinity, Texas
Political party Democratic
Spouse Barbara Alberstadt

Charles Nesbitt Wilson (born June 1, 1933), is a former United States naval officer and former Democratic United States Representative from the 2nd congressional district in Texas.

He is best known for leading Congress into supporting the largest-ever CIA covert operation, which supplied the Afghan Mujahideen during the Soviet war in Afghanistan after the communist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan took over during the Afghan Civil War and asked the Soviet Union to help suppress resistance from Mujahideen.

Contents

Biography

Early life

Charlie Wilson was born in the small town of Trinity, Texas, where he attended public schools and graduated from Trinity High School in 1951. While a student at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, he was appointed to the United States Naval Academy, where he received a B.S. and graduated eighth from the bottom of his class in 1956.[1] He received the second-highest number of demerits in the Academy's history.[2]

Naval career

Between 1956 and 1960, Wilson served in the United States Navy, attaining the rank of lieutenant. Following four years as a surface fleet officer, he was assigned to the Pentagon as part of an intelligence unit that evaluated the Soviet Union’s nuclear forces.

Entry into politics

Wilson first entered politics as a teenager by running a campaign against his next-door neighbor, city council incumbent Charles Hazard. When Wilson was thirteen, his dog entered Hazard's yard. Hazard retaliated by mixing crushed glass into the dog's food, causing fatal internal bleeding. Being a farmer's son, Wilson was able to get a driving permit at age 13, which enabled him to drive 96 voters, mainly blacks from poor neighborhoods, to the polls. As they left the car, he told each of them that he didn't want to influence their vote, but that the incumbent Hazard had purposely killed his dog. After Hazard was defeated by a margin of sixteen votes, Wilson went to his house to tell him he shouldn't poison any more dogs. [3] This event was retold in the 2007 movie Charlie Wilson's War.

As an adult, Wilson stayed out of politics until he was moved to volunteer for the John F. Kennedy presidential campaign. In 1960, after taking 30 days' leave from the Navy, Wilson entered his name into the race for Texas state representative from his home district. This action was against the regulations of the Navy, as service members are prohibited from holding a public office while on active duty. While Wilson was back on duty, his family and friends went door to door campaigning. In 1961, at age 27, he was sworn into office in Austin, Texas.

For the next 12 years, Wilson made his reputation in the Texas legislature as the "liberal from Lufkin", viewed with suspicion by business interests. He battled for the regulation of utilities, fought for Medicaid, tax exemptions for the elderly, the Equal Rights Amendment, and a minimum wage bill. He was also one of the few prominent Texas politicians to be pro-choice. Wilson was notorious for his personal life, particularly drinking and womanizing, and picked up the nickname "Good Time Charlie".

In 1972, Wilson was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from the Second District of Texas, taking office the following January. He was re-elected 11 times, but was not a candidate for reelection to the One Hundred Fifth Congress and resigned October 8, 1996.

Support for the Somoza government in Nicaragua

In the late 1970s, Wilson strongly supported the right-wing Somoza government in Nicaragua. His admiration for Somoza was unaffected by the dictator's unsuccessful effort to bribe him.[4] Wilson saw Somoza as an abandoned and betrayed U.S. ally, and he ran a rearguard action in the House appropriations committee attempting to save Somoza's regime, at one point threatening to wreck President Carter's Panama Canal Treaty if the U.S. did not resume supporting Somoza.[5]

Wilson later arranged a meeting between Somoza and Ed Wilson (a CIA agent) who offered to form a 1000-man force of ex-CIA operatives to fight on Somoza's behalf. The meeting collapsed when Somoza fondled Tina Simons, Wilson's girlfriend, and the deal proved impossible after Somoza declined to pay $100-million for the 1000-man force.[6]

Soviet-Afghan war

Main article: Operation Cyclone

In 1980, Wilson read an Associated Press dispatch on the congressional wires describing the refugees fleeing Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. According to biographer George Crile III, Wilson called the staff of the House Appropriations Committee dealing with "black appropriations" and requested a two-fold appropriation increase for Afghanistan. Because Wilson had just been named to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense (which is responsible for funding CIA operations), his request went through.[7]

That was not the last time he increased the CIA budget for its Afghan operation. In 1983, he won an additional $40 million, $17 million of which was allocated for anti-aircraft weapons to shoot down Mil Mi-24 Hind helicopters.[8] The next year, CIA officer Gust Avrakotos directly approached Wilson – breaking the CIA's policy against lobbying Congress for money – asking Wilson for $50 million more. Wilson agreed and convinced Congress, saying, "The U.S. had nothing whatsoever to do with these people's decision to fight ... but we'll be damned by history if we let them fight with stones."[9] Later, Wilson succeeded in giving the Afghans $300 million of unused Pentagon money before the end of the fiscal year.[10] Thus, Wilson directly influenced the level of U.S. support for the Afghan Mujahideen. Wilson has said that the covert operation succeeded because "there was no partisanship or damaging leaks."[11]

Joanne Herring played a significant role in helping the Afghan resistance fighters get support and military equipment from the U.S. government. She persuaded Wilson to visit the Pakistani leadership, and after meeting with them he was taken to a major Pakistan-based Afghan refugee camp so he could see for himself the atrocities committed by the Soviets against the Afghan people. About that visit, Wilson later said:

"That was the experience that will always be seared in my memory, was going through those hospitals and seeing, especially those children with their hands blown off from the mines that the Soviets were dropping from their helicopters. That was perhaps the deciding thing... and it made a huge difference for the next 10 or 12 years of my life because I left those hospitals determined, as long as I had a breath in my body and was a member in Congress, that I was going to do what I could to make the Soviets pay for what they were doing!"

Retirement

Wilson retired from Congress in 1997 to live in Lufkin, Texas.[12] In February 1999, Wilson married Barbara Alberstadt, a ballerina he met at a party in Washington in 1980.

In September 2007, after two months on an organ transplantation waiting list, Wilson received the heart of a 35-year-old donor. Years of heavy drinking had put a strain on his heart; in 1985, he had been told by a doctor that he only had 18 months to live.[13]

Cultural references

Wilson's funding of the anti-Soviet Afghan war was revealed in the book Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History (2003), by George Crile III. In the 2007 film version of the book, actor Tom Hanks portrayed Wilson.[14]

Wilson was a key character in Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (2005), by Steve Coll. On December 27, 2007, the History Channel broadcast The True Story of Charlie Wilson, a two-hour documentary about the congressman's Afghan war efforts and his personal life.

References

  1. ^ Crile, George. Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press. 2003. p. 26. ISBN 0871138549
  2. ^ "Charlie Wilson's War Against Convention Started at USNA," The Annapolis Capital, December 30, 2007.
  3. ^ Crile, George (2004). Charlie Wilson's War. Atlantic Monthly Press. pp. 111–112. ISBN 0802141242. 
  4. ^ Crile, 36.
  5. ^ Crile, 30-36.
  6. ^ Crile, 38.
  7. ^ Eduardo Real: ‘’Zbigniew Brzezinski, Defeated by his Success’’
  8. ^ Crile, 214-5.
  9. ^ Crile, 259–62.
  10. ^ Crile, 409–13.
  11. ^ Wall Street Journal, December 28, 2007, p. W13
  12. ^ Charlie Wilson Regrets Nothing - TIME
  13. ^ George Crile, Charlie Wilson's War, Atlantic, New York, 2002, page 382
  14. ^ "Sticking to His Guns: Charlie Wilson: The Wild Card Image Was The Real Deal", By Peter Carlson, The Washington Post, December 22, 2007

External links


Texas House of Representatives
Preceded by
William Winston		 Member of the Texas House of Representatives
from District 18 (Trinity)
1961–1963		 Succeeded by
David Crews
Preceded by
Steve Burgess		 Member of the Texas House of Representatives
from District 6 (Lufkin)
1963–1967		 Succeeded by
David Crews
Texas Senate
Preceded by
Martin Dies, Jr.		 Texas State Senator
from District 3 (Lufkin)
1967–1973		 Succeeded by
Don Adams
United States House of Representatives
Preceded by
John Dowdy		 Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Texas's 2nd congressional district
1973–1997		 Succeeded by
Jim Turner
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See also
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Foreign policy
Timeline of events · Portal · Category
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Wilson_(Texas_politician)"

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