Charles Wilson (Texas politician)

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.

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. He received the second-highest number of demerits in the Academy's history.

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.

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. Wilson saw the corrupt 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.

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 lecherously fondled Tina Simons, Wilson's girlfriend. The deal proved impossible because Ed Wilson asked Somoza for $100 million to pay for the 1000-man force.

Soviet-Afghan war

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 United States House Appropriations Committee dealing with "black appropriations" and requested a two-fold appropriation increase for Afghanistan. Because Wilson had just been named to the United States House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense (which is responsible for funding CIA operations), his request went through.

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. 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. Later, Wilson succeeded in giving the Afghans $300 million of unused Pentagon money before the end of the fiscal year. 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.

Retirement

Wilson retired from Congress in 1997 to live in Lufkin, Texas. 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' remaining before he would most likely die owing to the effect of alcohol on his heart.

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.

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

External links

• Charlie Wilson biography at biography.com (accessed 2007-12-23).
• Charles Wilson Congressional Papers at Stephen F. Austin University
• News, photos and a blog about Charlie Wilson and the movie from Charlie Wilson's hometown newspaper, The Lufkin Daily News

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• "Charlie Wilson's War Was Really America's War," article by former White House speechwriter Michael Johns on Charlie Wilson, January 19, 2008
• "Afghanistan's New Militant Alliances," BBC article on Afghan military history referencing Wilson's involvement, April 17, 2006
• "Charlie Did It," by Paul Wolf, June 7, 2003