Ed Derwinski

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Ed Derwinski

Edward Joseph Derwinski (* 15. September 1926 in Chicago , Illinois ; † 15. January 2012 in Oak Brook , Illinois) was an American politician of the Republican Party . In 1989 he was appointed first minister for war veterans by US President George Bush .

Early years of life

Derwinski joined the US Army in 1945 and witnessed the last battles of World War II in the Pacific before serving in occupied Japan for some time . After retiring from the military, he studied at Loyola University in Chicago, where he graduated in 1951.

Membership career

Ed Derwinski took his first political office in 1957 as a member of the Illinois House of Representatives . In the following year he was elected as a representative of his state to the US House of Representatives. There he belonged to the Republican faction after eleven re-elections until 1983; among other things, he was a high-ranking member of the foreign affairs committee . During this time, he also served as a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly from 1971 to 1972 and as chairman of the US delegation to the Inter-Parliamentary Union between 1978 and 1980.

In 1980, the Congressional electoral districts were redistributed at the initiative of the Democrats ; so Derwinski and his Republican party colleague George M. O'Brien had to run in the same district. O'Brien had the advantage that this consisted largely of his former constituency, and prevailed against Derwinski.

In government services

President Ronald Reagan then gave him an advisory position in the US State Department ; In 1987 he got there the office of Secretary of State for International Security Affairs ( Under Secretary of State for International Security Affairs ), which he kept until the end of Reagan's presidency.

One of Reagan's final acts was to create the Department of War Veterans. This measure became official on March 15, 1989; Reagan's successor to the presidency, George Bush, appointed Ed Derwinski as the first minister to serve in his cabinet . On September 26, 1992, he resigned from office; his deputy Anthony Principi was entrusted with the provisional management of the ministry.

One focus of his political activity was always on Eastern European affairs. So he was involved in efforts to rehabilitate Draža Mihailović , a Serb general during World War II. Mihailović was executed in July 1946 for alleged collaboration with the National Socialists . His posthumous award by the USA with the Legion of Merit for the fight against the Axis Powers was initially kept secret in order not to strain relations with Yugoslavia . At the urging of US soldiers who had saved the lives of Mihailović's troops during an operation in enemy territory, Derwinski, who was at the State Department at the time, made sure that President Harry S. Truman's statement that Mihailović had not collaborated publicly have been done.

Another résumé

After leaving the ministerial office, Derwinski retired in Illinois with his second wife Bonita. During the 1996 presidential campaign , he stood up as chairman of the Ethnic Americans for Dole / Kemp for the two Republican candidates, who were clearly defeated by Bill Clinton and Al Gore . He later became a member of a Greek-American cultural association.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Edward Derwinski, 1926-2012

Web links