Background
Herbert Clark Hoover was born on August 4, 1903 in London, England. He was the son of Herbert Clark Hoover Sr. , thirty-first president of the United States, and Lou Henry.
Businessman engineer politician
Herbert Clark Hoover was born on August 4, 1903 in London, England. He was the son of Herbert Clark Hoover Sr. , thirty-first president of the United States, and Lou Henry.
Hoover was raised in various countries, and received a Bachelor of Arts in petroleum geology from Stanford in 1925, and a Master of Business Administration from Harvard in 1928.
In 1928, Hoover won a Guggenheim grant to conduct aeronautical research. A radio enthusiast since childhood, he became an authority on ground-to-air communication. He worked as the radio communications engineer for Western Air Express and became president of Aeronautical Radio, Inc. In 1930 he contracted tuberculosis. In 1931, following treatment for the disease, he resumed his career, working for Transcontinental and Western Air. That year he also patented an air radio direction finder; he later received patents for electronic, spectrographic, and seismometric devices for the discovery of oil.
After serving as a teaching fellow at the California Institute of Technology in 1934-1935, Hoover founded and headed the United Geophysical Company, which employed 1, 000 people by the time he entered government service. He was also president from 1936 to 1946 of the Consolidated Engineering Corporation, which contributed significantly to developing devices for testing stress in military aircraft during World War II. From 1942 to 1952, Hoover served as a technical consultant, especially on petroleum matters, to Iran and several Latin American governments. Hoover avoided exploiting his father's fame, although family connections benefited him and proved a source of controversy in his career. Nevertheless, he was able enough in his own right to become a successful and highly respected figure in engineering and business circles.
In September 1953, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles appointed Hoover a special adviser to help solve the Anglo-Iranian oil dispute. When Iran's nationalization of its petroleum industry in 1951 adversely affected British interests, took Iranian oil off the world market, and impaired the development of America's alliance system, Hoover traveled widely to gather information and develop ideas that would be instrumental in fashioning a solution to the crisis. The resulting highly praised agreement of August 1954 provided for $70 million in compensation to the British and the marketing of Iran's oil by an Anglo-Dutch-French-American consortium. Subsequently, on August 17, President Dwight D. Eisenhower nominated Hoover to be undersecretary of state, to which the Senate consented in less than twenty-four hours.
In October 1954, Hoover assumed his new duties. During his undersecretaryship, he served not only as Dulles' deputy but also as chairman of the Operations Coordinating Board, the executive committee of the National Security Council. In these roles, Hoover was involved in the full range of American foreign-policy development and implementation. He particularly played a significant role in the Egyptian crisis of 1955-1956. Hoover, who was suspicious of British motives and hostile to the regime of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt, helped Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey to scuttle Dulles' plans to assist Nasser's development of the Aswan Dam. In 1956, Egypt seized control of the Suez Canal, and France, Great Britain, and Israel contemplated taking military action to recover it; but in October, Hoover told Eisenhower of a plan, presumably by the Central Intelligence Agency, to topple Nasser in order to forestall an invasion of Egypt. The president, however, insisted that the dispute should be settled through negotiation.
Matters came to a crucial juncture late that month when Israel, soon joined by Britain and France, invaded Egypt, just after Russia had invaded Hungary to suppress revolt there and while an American presidential election was in its final stages. Affairs were further complicated when Dulles was hospitalized; Hoover then became acting secretary of state. Although the United States successfully pressured Great Britain, France, and Israel to withdraw their forces and Eisenhower handily won reelection, the damage had been done: the Egyptians had blocked the Suez Canal, rendering it useless for months; the North Atlantic Treaty alliance and American relations with Israel had become strained; and the United States had been unable to exploit fully the Soviet repression of Hungary. Although Hoover had acted ably during the worst of the crisis, some criticized him for refusing to give aid to Egypt and comfort to Britain's Prime Minister Anthony Eden after the war. Hoover, who had considered leaving public life for some time, resigned his office in December 1956.
Before he left in February 1957, he thwarted movements to appoint his predecessor, Walter B. Smith, or Vice-President Richard M. Nixon as chairman of the Operations Coordinating Board. Thus, the new undersecretary, Christian A. Herter, also succeeded Hoover as chairman of the board.
After returning to California, Hoover worked as a consulting engineer and served on the boards of various corporations; educational institutions; and civic, philanthropic, and radio groups. His only later role in government was as a part-time consultant to the State Department. He died in Pasadena, California.
Hoover not only made important contributions as an engineer and a businessman but was also influential in the development of the oil industry. As undersecretary of state, he showed courage and intelligence. Moreover, he was considerably successful in accommodating the interests of conservative and moderate political elements. Eisenhower, in 1954-1955, considered him as his successor as president, but he concluded--probably correctly--that Hoover did not have enough "fire" to win election.
Hoover was a member of the Republican party.
On June 25, 1925, Hoover married Margaret Eva Watson; they had three children.
