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Information > Heritage > History Person
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Harold K. Finletter
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Thomas K. Finletter was the second secretary of the Air Force from April 24, 1950 to Jan. 20, 1953. (U.S. Air Force photo)
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Thomas Knight Finletter was the second secretary of the Air Force, serving from April 24, 1950 to Jan. 20, 1953.
Finletter was born in Philadelphia in 1893, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with both bachelor of arts degree in 1915 and bachelor of laws in 1920. In World War I, he served with the 312th Field Artillery advancing to the rank of captain. He was admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar in 1920 and the New York Bar in 1921. As a specialist in bankruptcy law, he became a successful partner in the New York law firm of Coudert Brothers from 1926 to 1941. He also lectured at the University of Pennsylvania Law School from 1931 to 1941
Finletter, attorney, student of economic and foreign affairs and author, began his government service in 1941, as a special assistant to the Secretary of State on international economic affairs. In 1943, he was appointed executive director and later deputy director of the Office of Foreign Economic Coordinator. In this post, he was in charge of planning economic activities related to liberated areas and was in control of matters of foreign exchange and matters relating to the operations of the Alien Property Custodian. Finletter resigned his post in 1944, when the functions of OFEC were absorbed by the newly created Foreign Economic Administration.
In 1945, Finletter acted as consultant at the United Nations Conference on International Organization at San Francisco.
He returned to public service July 18, 1947, when President Harry S. Truman established the temporary, five-man commission that inquired into all phases of aviation and drafted the national air policy report.
Prior to his appointment as Air Force Secretary, Finletter was chief of the Economic Cooperation Administration's mission to the United Kingdom with headquarters in London, to which he had been appointed early in 1949.
His most notable public service prior to becoming air secretary occurred between 1947 and 1948 when he chaired the President Harry S. Truman's Air Policy Commission. The commission's findings, titled Survival in the Air Age--but commonly called the Finletter Report -- cautioned that an understrength Air Force would be unable to defend the United States against atomic attack. It urged that service capability be restored as soon as possible with the help of a viable aircraft industry, and it endorsed a 70-group Air Force.
During Finletter's tenure, the Air Force Organization Act of 1951 finalized the Air Force's internal structure. Although the act did not resolve problems like those associated with supply, it did clarify the roles and responsibilities of the air secretary and the chief of staff. Under the Air Force Organization Act of 1951, the air secretary remained the nominal head of the Air Force.
Secretary Finletter consistently advocated creating an Air Force strong enough to deter the growing Soviet threat and adaptable enough to react to sudden or limited hostilities. For reasons beyond than the Korean War, Finletter must be credited with furthering the modernization and growth of the Air Force, which by the end of his tenure was nearly three times the size it had been under Secretary Symington. Finletter accomplished that feat at a time when the Office of the Secretary of Defense was expanding its jurisdiction.
When his three-year tenure as air secretary ended in 1953, Finletter returned to practicing law until 1961, when he was appointed the U.S. ambassador to NATO, a post he held until 1965.
He died April 24, 1980.
Source: Air Force Office of HIstory
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