Background
Earle Gilmore Wheeler was born in Washington, D. C. , the son of Clifton F. Wheeler, a dentist, and Ida Gilmore.
Earle Gilmore Wheeler was born in Washington, D. C. , the son of Clifton F. Wheeler, a dentist, and Ida Gilmore.
He graduated from Eastern High School in Washington in 1925 and from Millard's West Point Preparatory School in the capital city in 1928. From 1924 to 1928, he also served in the National Guard of the District of Columbia, becoming a platoon sergeant. His company participated in several interservice rifle matches. Wheeler entered the United States Military Academy in 1928. Wheeler, known as "Buster" or "Bus" to his classmates and army colleagues at West Point, was a good student and served as cadet lieutenant in his senior year. Graduating with a B. S. as a second lieutenant of infantry in June 1932, Wheeler spent four years with the Twenty-ninth Infantry at Fort Benning, Ga. Lieutenant Wheeler attended the Infantry Officer's Course at the Infantry School in Fort Benning, then left for Tientsin, China, in June 1937, to serve with the Fifteenth Infantry.
He returned to West Point in the summer of 1940 to serve as a mathematics instructor for the academic year, and then briefly served as aide-decamp to the commanding general of the Thirty-sixth Infantry Division at Fort Sam Houston and Camp Bowie, Tex. In December 1941, Captain Wheeler entered the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kans. , completing the accelerated course the following February. Following a six-month tour of duty as Second Battalion commander in the 1416t Infantry Regiment, Thirty-sixth Infantry Division, at Camp Blanding, Fla. , Major Wheeler became assistant chief of staff for operations for the Ninety-ninth Infantry Division at Camp Van Dorn, Miss. In May 1943, Lieutenant Colonel Wheeler was appointed chief of staff for the newly formed Sixty-third Infantry Division at Camp Van Dorn. In December 1944, he went to France with his division, remaining in combat until shortly before V-E Day in the spring of 1945. Although he sought to command a regimental combat team when an opening developed, his commander requested that he remain as his chief of staff. At the close of the European campaign, Wheeler's division commander sent him a handwritten letter stating that Wheeler was primarily responsible for the division's outstanding performance in combat. Late in 1945, Wheeler, by now a temporary full colonel, was appointed senior instructor of combined arms at the Artillery School, Fort Sill, Okla. He returned to Europe in May 1946 for successive assignments as assistant chief of staff for supply, acting chief of staff, and deputy chief of staff for operations at the Western Base Section, European Command, in Paris. In January 1947, he began a thirty-month tour of duty as assistant chief of operations at the headquarters of the United States constabulary in Heidelberg, Germany. In August 1949, Wheeler, who had reverted to the grade of lieutenant colonel, became a student at the National War College in Washington, D. C. , graduating in June 1950. He was then assigned as a member of the Joint Intelligence Group in the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for fifteen months. In November 1951, Wheeler was once again a full colonel, and was selected to command the 3516t Infantry in Trieste, Italy. A year later, he was assigned as readiness officer and later as assistant chief of staff for Plans and Operations, Allied Forces Southern Europe, with headquarters in Naples. He was selected for a brigadier generalship in November 1952, and remained in Naples until September 1955. He returned to Washington, D. C. , as director of plans in the office of the deputy chief of staff for military operations, and was promoted to major general in December 1955. On one occasion in 1956, Major General Wheeler, representing the Defense Department, directed a practice drill at the mountain center of western Maryland to which federal agency heads were ordered to take shelter in the event of a national emergency. The general was junior in rank to most of those present, but he nevertheless made a strong impression. In June 1957, Wheeler was appointed assistant deputy chief of staff for military operations, and in October 1958, went to Fort Hood, Tex. , as commanding general of the Second Armored Division. In March 1959, he assumed additional duties as commanding general of the Third Corps, remaining at Fort Hood. In April 1960, the newly promoted Lieutenant General Wheeler returned to the Pentagon as director of the Joint Staff, Department of Defense, remaining in that post until February 1962. He was designated a full general and deputy commander in chief of the United States European Command at Camp des Loges, France, in March 1962, and served in that capacity until September 1962. When President John F. Kennedy sought a new chief of staff for the army in the fall of 1962, he queried the service chiefs of the navy, air force, and marine corps for their suggestions, and all three recommended Wheeler, who was appointed army chief of staff on Oct. 1, 1962. Having just arrived in Washington, Wheeler was called to the Pentagon because state officials in Oxford, Miss. , had lost control of a rapidly accelerating racial confrontation arising from integration at the University of Mississippi. Wheeler's predecessor had already left the city, and Wheeler had not yet been sworn in. After watching the senior officer in command attempt to deal with the situation, Wheeler took over. A colleague who was present later stated, "Everything started to move. It was like a breath of fresh air. " In July 1964, President Lyndon Johnson elevated Wheeler to the post of chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest military office in the United States. Wheeler held this position for six years, longer than any of his predecessors or successors to date. He assumed office during the period when American military forces were being sent in large numbers to Vietnam, and remained until plans for their return had been formulated. Wheeler's eight years of increasingly demanding responsibilities under Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon took an enormous toll. As chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he made many difficult decisions, most of which had political and diplomatic, as well as military, implications; for example, his decision to follow President Johnson's orders to begin secret air strikes over Cambodia in 1969 was especially controversial. President Johnson held the general in the highest regard, referring to Wheeler in his autobiography, The Vantage Point (1971), in forty-three separate recollections. Wheeler survived one serious heart attack, which was not immediately diagnosed, without taking leave from his duties, but toward the end of his tour of duty, was accompanied on all out-of-town trips by a physician. On July 2, 1970, the forty-second anniversary of his arrival at West Point as a plebe, Wheeler retired from active duty. To accommodate all who wished to attend, the retirement ceremony was held in a hangar at Andrews Air Force Base. He died in a hospital in Frederick, Md. , following a brief illness.
Wheeler was awarded the first Department of Defense Distinguished Service Medal. His other decorations included the army, navy, and air force Distinguished Service medals, each the highest military honor conferred during times of peace. In addition, he held ten other American decorations and a dozen foreign ones. In retirement, Wheeler and his wife took up residence outside of Martinsburg, W. Va. He became a director of the Monsanto Corporation, served on the President's Commission on White House Fellowships, and periodically traveled to Washington for consultations at the Pentagon.
Wheeler, a well-built, handsome man of more than six feet.
He married Frances Rogers Howell on June 10, 1932; they had one son.
