"Deputy Secretary of Defense" William Foster Hand Signed FDC Dated 1965 For Sale

Up for sale "Deputy Secretary of Defense" William Foster Hand Signed First Day Cover Dated 1965. This is a VERY RARE Cover as it was signed by The Secretary of Defense at the height of the Vietnam War. 

ES-4169

William Chapman Foster (April

27, 1897 – October 15, 1984) was an American businessman and high-ranking

government official. He served as United

States Under Secretary of Commerce and United

States Deputy Secretary of Defense under President Harry Truman. Later, he served as the first United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency director,

under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Born in Westfield, New Jersey in

1897, Foster attended the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology (MIT), studying chemical engineering.[1] While a senior at MIT, he enlisted

in what was then known as the United States Army Air

Service and served as a combat pilot in World War I.He told a story of how he got his pilots license

when there were no instructors. He was a sailor, so he knew the wind upon a

sail. An airplane was similar, he said, with the sail horizontal. The first

requirement was that you had to obtain an airplane. Then as long as you took

off and landed without dying, you were awarded a license. VJF reference.[1] In 1918, he entered the workforce

as an engineer for various organizations including the Packard Motor Car Company. In

1922, he went into business for himself as the owner of the Pressed &

Welded Steel Products Company. Following a successful business career, Foster

worked closely with the U.S. government during World War II, serving on the New York City mayors' post-war

planning committee and as a member of the Purchase Policy Advisory Committee of

the Army Services Forces. In 1944, he took office as Deputy Director of the

Purchases Division, Army Service Forces. In 1946, Averell Harriman, then Secretary of Commerce, picked Foster to

be Undersecretary of Commerce, in part to help with rebuilding Europe after the

war. When President Harry Truman launched the Marshall Plan for that purpose in 1948, Harriman became

the Special Representative of the effort in Europe and Foster became his

deputy. Foster was Administrator of the Marshall Plan (formally the Economic

Cooperation Administration) for 1950–1951. In 1951, as the Korean War raged, Truman appointed Foster to be Deputy

Secretary of Defense, under Secretary Robert A. LovettFoster played a major role in procurement for the war. Although Foster was a

lifelong Republican, he

left government when the Eisenhower administration came to office. In 1953,

upon deciding to leave his role in the government, Foster accepted the position

of President of the prestigious Manufacturing Chemists Association (MCA).

During his time there, he proposed a national-level air pollution abatement

committee, which eventually led to offices within the government prior to the

creation of the Environmental Protection

Agency. Foster had long-been a free trade advocate, and eventually

left the MCA over its support of tariffs. He served as Executive Vice

President and Director of Olin

Mathieson Chemical Corporation until 1958, and as Vice

President and Senior Advisor of Olin Mathieson until 1961. In 1961, Foster

worked with the Kennedy administration to

pass a law creating a new Arms Control

and Disarmament Agency, and served as its founding director

(1961–1968). Foster not only directed the agency, but also served as one

of the key U.S. arms control negotiators. Having established a good

working relationship with his Soviet counterparts, he contributed to the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and

the hot-line accord in 1963 and was the lead U.S. negotiator for the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, frequently

serving as the U.S. representative to the Eighteen

Nation Committee on Disarmament (ENCD). The ACDA under

Foster's leadership is widely seen as having been the driving force behind a

wide range of disarmament and nonproliferation efforts. Foster left the

government again at the end of the Johnson administration.