Secretary of Defense

CHARLES ERWIN WILSON,* 62, president of General Motors Corp.

Family & Early Years: Born in 1890 at Minerva, Ohio. Both his father and mother were schoolteachers. "Engine Charlie" has been fascinated by machines since he was a boy (two of the Wilsons' neighbors were locomotive engineers who often took him for rides). He went through a four-year electrical engineering course at Carnegie Tech in three years, graduated at 18.

Business Career: Went to work as an apprentice for Westinghouse at 18-c- an hour, designed Westinghouse's first automobile starter, built radio generators and dynamotors for the Army and Navy during World War I. In 1919, he joined General Motors as sales manager and chief engineer of Remy Electric Co., a G.M. subsidiary, within nine years was a G.M. vice president. He became right-hand man to G.M. President William S. Knudsen, succeeded him in 1941 after Big Bill went to Washington as top defense expediter. Wilson's salary and bonus in 1951 (before taxes): $566,200. His future salary as Secretary of Defense: $22,500.

Defense Experience: In World War II, Wilson converted his industrial giant (Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, Cadillac, Frigidaire, diesel engines, AC Spark Plug, Hyatt Bearings and 23 other divisions) to war production. G.M. made nearly one-fourth of all the tanks, armored cars and airplane engines produced in the U.S. during World War II, almost half of all the machine guns and carbines, two-thirds of all the large trucks. At war's end, Wilson reconverted G.M. to peacetime production at top speed and partially converted to defense production when the Korean war broke out. Today, Wilson's 470,000 employees produce more war material than any other U.S. firm. Wilson also served on a committee surveying German industry (large parts of which were being dismantled for reparations). Head of the committee: George Humphrey, nominee for Secretary of the Treasury (see below).

Defense Ideas: Wilson has long criticized the Administration for excessive controls which throttle industry's initiative. He wants to see U.S. business develop factories that can produce war and peacetime goods at the same time, can switch from one to the other virtually at a moment's notice (G.M. has already built such plants experimentally). Wilson can be expected to run the Defense Department, which has been called the world's biggest business, efficiently and imaginatively, to improve procurement methods and speed up slowpoke development of new weapons, to cut down waste. His greatest handicap may prove to be lack of governmental experience, which has proved disastrous to many a businessman in Washington, including "Electric Charlie" Wilson.

Personality: White-haired and warmly blue-eyed, Wilson (5 ft. 10 in.) is quiet and reserved, speaks slowly (with a Midwestern twang), thinks fast, although he is not given to snap decisions. He once accepted a challenge by fast-talking Walter Reuther to a public debate, argued him to a draw. In his office he works between two desks with several briefcases at his feet and a couple of phones at his elbow. Wilson knows every part of the G.M. empire, often unexpectedly calls a junior executive in outlying plants. He works around the clock, forgetting the time, goes home to his house near Detroit only two or three nights a week, spends many a night in an apartment at Detroit's G.M. Building, working alone in front of a fireplace. He is an Episcopalian.

Recreation: Poker, bridge, cattle-raising (he has the largest privately owned herd of Ayrshires in Michigan), swimming, occasionally hunting & fishing. He gave up ice skating and fox hunting reluctantly after a couple of spills. Married for 40 years, three sons and three daughters, all married. His favorite food: chipped beef and salted peanuts.

* Not to be confused with Charles E. (for Edward) Wilson, former president of General Electric, who resigned last March as Director of Defense Mobilization, after a row with Harry Truman, or with Charles E. (for Eben) Wilson, onetime vice president of Worthington Pump & Machinery Corp. Only common complaint of the Charles E. Wilsons: the mailman often mixed up their dividend checks.

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