Charlie Wilson (Texas Politician)
Charles "Charlie" Nesbitt Wilson (June 1, 1933 – February 10, 2010) was a United States naval officer and former 12-term Democratic United States Representative from Texas's 2nd congressional district.
Wilson is best known for leading Congress into supporting Operation Cyclone, the largest-ever Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) covert operation which, under the Reagan administration, supplied military equipment including anti-aircraft weapons such as Stinger antiaircraft missiles and paramilitary officers from their Special Activities Division to the Afghan Mujahideen during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. His behind-the-scenes campaign was the subject of the non-fiction book Charlie Wilson's War by George Crile and a subsequent film adaptation starring Tom Hanks as Wilson.
Read more about Charlie Wilson (Texas Politician): Early Life and Naval Career, Early Political Career Highlights, Congressional Politics, Support For The Somoza Government in Nicaragua, Soviet-Afghan War, "Good Time Charlie", Retirement, Death, Cultural References
Famous quotes containing the word wilson:
“It was a very lonely spirit that looked out from under those shaggy brows and comprehended men without fully communicating with them, as if, in spite of all its genial efforts at comradeship, it dwelt apart, saw its visions of duty where no man looked on.... This strange child of the cabin kept company with invisible things, was born into no intimacy but that its own silently assembling and deploying thoughts.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)