William Harding Jackson
William Harding Jackson (born March 25, 1901 in Belle Meade , Davidson County , Tennessee , † September 28, 1971 in Tucson , Arizona ) was an American attorney , colonel in the US Army Air Forces and investment banker , not only deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), but also briefly acting National Security Advisor to the United States in 1956 .
Life
Studies, lawyer and World War II
Jackson came from a family that since the fifth generation a 5400 acre large plantation business in Belle Meade. His grandfather, William Hicks Jackson, was a Confederate Brigadier General in the Civil War . When his father of the same name died in July 1903, at the age of just two he became a third of the youngest heirs to the family estate, which was sold in 1907.
After attending school, he studied at Princeton University and graduated in 1924 with a Bachelor of Science (BS). He completed a subsequent study of law at the Law School of Harvard University in 1928 with a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) and was then employed as a lawyer in the law firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft after his legal admission . Between 1930 and 1947 he was a partner at Carter, Ledyard & Milburn, a renowned law firm headquartered on Wall Street .
During the Second World War he began his military service as a captain in the intelligence service of the US Army Air Forces in 1942 . In this capacity, he proposed a plan to end the submarine war in the Atlantic Ocean to Admiral Ernest J. King , the Chief of Naval Operations , which the latter, however, angrily rejected. However, after 3500 Allied ships were sunk by German submarines in the period up to 1944 , parts of its planning were taken over on the instructions of Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson .
He was later assigned to the Europe Coastal Air Command as a representative of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) before serving as a liaison officer to William Joseph Donovan , head of the OSS, at the British foreign intelligence service , the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). Most recently he was promoted to colonel and was as such a G2 officer and deputy chief of intelligence of the 12th US Army Group under the command of General Omar N. Bradley in the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF).
National Security Advisor
After the end of the Second World War he resumed his work as a partner in the law firm Carter, Ledyard & Milburn and also became a managing partner of the venture capital company JH Whitney & Company in New Canaan, founded in 1946 .
On August 18, 1949, he was reassigned to military intelligence and assigned to General Walter Bedell Smith by the Executive Secretary of the National Security Council , Admiral Sidney William Souers . When he became director of the CIA on October 7, 1950, Jackson took over the post of deputy director. He held this office until his replacement by Allen Welsh Dulles on October 3, 1951.
He then signed a contract with the White House as special advisor on national security to US President Harry S. Truman and also took on these duties towards subsequent Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower , John F. Kennedy , Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon up to his death was.
In September 1956 he became acting National Security Advisor of the United States and held this office until January 7, 1957. Later he was also chairman of the controversial Jackson Committee, which dealt with psychological warfare in the US Army .
Most recently he lived at a Tucson hacienda decorated with memorabilia from the family home in Belle Meade.
Web links
- Biography on the CIA homepage
- William Harding Jackson in the database of Find a Grave (English)
personal data | |
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SURNAME | Jackson, William Harding |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American attorney, bank manager, and national security advisor |
DATE OF BIRTH | March 25, 1901 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Belle Meade , Davidson County , Tennessee |
DATE OF DEATH | September 28, 1971 |
Place of death | Tucson , Arizona |