Avenging His Dog - The Fascinating Story of Colorful Congressman "Good Time"

 As well-known for leading a flamboyant, playboy lifestyle as being the mastermind responsiblefor funneling $5 billion dollars (about $12 billion today) to Afghan rebels (when theywere on our side) in their fight against the Soviet Union, Texas Congressman Charlie Wilsonwas a larger than life character who serves as a stark reminder of how different the politicallandscape was before social media and the 24 hour news cycle. So it should come as no surprise that hisfirst introduction into politics was just as notable as his later exploits. Charlie was born on June 1, 1933 and raisedin Trinity, Texas, a small town north of Houston. 

As he explained in the book Charlie Wilson’sWar: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History, written by GeorgeCrile, when Charlie was 13, his dog strayed into his neighbor’s, Charles Hazard’s,yard one too many times. Hazard, living up to his name, fed the dogsomething that contained crushed glass, ultimately leading to the dog’s death. Unsurprisingly, Charlie sought revenge – firstby setting Hazard’s garden on fire with a little help from a decent amount of gasoline. This did not satisfy him, however. 

Realizing the man sat on Trinity’s CityCouncil, Charlie decided to hit Hazard where it really hurt. Organizing a campaign against the dog-murderer,Charlie took the family Chevy truck and in total drove just shy of 100 voters to thepolls for the next City Council election. As each voter left the vehicle, Charlie toldthem what Hazard had done to his dog. The 95 voters transported by Charlie thatday comprised about 25% of those that voted. Hazard lost his bid for reelection by 16 votes. Making sure Hazard knew Charlie was behindthe loss, he went by his house after and told him maybe he “shouldn’t poison any moredogs.”

 As you may or may not already know, Charliewent on to be rather successful in politics, although it appears mostly due to a fair amountof personal charm and ingenuity, rather than strictly hard work and adherence to the rules. In fact, his political career was highlightedby various sexcapades, drunken car crashes (including a hit and run, which he was onlyfined $25 for), being a functioning alcoholic, investigations for drug use (including cocaine),and stealing a car used by one of Lyndon B. Johnson’s Secret Service agents and thenhiding it in an alley. Why? He felt Johnson’s Secret Service agentswere “assholes” and this one in particular had double parked, blocking his car. 

Never seeming to learn from his mistakes,Charlie noted in an interview that his largely Christian voter base continued to elect himbecause “When the day was done, the working people knew I was on their side, and the blacksknew I was on their side. And it’s hard to explain, but there is atolerance for human frailty that doesn’t exist outside of East Texas… The good Lord blessed me with the world’smost tolerant and forgiving constituency…” As for the more direct start of his politicalcareer, receiving an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Charlie was infamousfor his poor grades, shoes lacking polish and missing curfew.

 In fact, when he graduated 8th from the bottomin 1956 with a degree in electrical engineering, he left with the distinction of having themost demerits in the history of the academy. Serving in the Navy for five years, Charlieviolated the rules and ran for Texas state representative while still on active duty(a no-no as active duty individuals are not allowed to hold public office.) Utilizing his charm, however, Charlie campaigneddoor to door, winning the election. He was just 27 when he began the first ofhis 12 terms as a Texas legislator. Because he was Democrat in the mode of JFK,he earned the nickname the “liberal from Lufkin”. 

Tall, handsome and charming, Charlie was awell-known womanizer, with his exploits frequently being reported in the media right down tohis bedroom hot tub equipped with handcuffs, as well as an incident in Las Vegas in whichhe ultimately was investigated for cocaine use. As for Charlie, he noted of that particularescapade, The girls [strippers] had cocaine, and themusic was loud. It was total happiness. And both of them had ten long, red fingernailswith an endless supply of beautiful white powder…. The feds spent a million bucks trying to figureout whether, when those fingernails passed under my nose, did I inhale or exhale, andI ain’t telling. 

Despite such unabashed behavior, Charlie paradoxicallyhad no trouble getting votes from women; he once described his appeal: Feminists like me because I am an unapologeticsexist, chauvinist redneck who votes with ’em every time… On that note, Charlie’s political platformwas largely built on pushing for equal rights for women and minorities, raising minimumwage, tax exemptions for the elderly and Medicaid. Not just surrounding himself with beautifulwomen outside of the office, Charlie did so within as well.

 After he became the U.S. Congressman for SecondCongressional District for Texas, he broke with Washington, D.C. tradition and employeda bevy of female staffers, publicly stating of his choice in hiring women instead of menin an era when that was rarely done, “You can teach ’em to type, but you can’t teach’em how to grow tits…” Young, hard working, and beautiful, includingone Miss USA, the female contingent in his office became known as “Charlie’s Angels.” Charlie noted that many of his fellow politiciansdidn’t mind and that “Bill Clinton used to say I was the only congressman who didn’tneed an appointment to see him, as long as I didn’t come understaffed…” As for Charlie’s work, his most famous achievementwas getting the Afghan rebels funding, with this memorialized in the movie Charlie Wilson’sWar (2007), starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts.

 Initially a cause of his close friend, conservativeHouston socialite Joanne Herring, Charlie parlayed his influential positions on theHouse Appropriations Committee and Subcommittee on Foreign Operations into billions of dollarsto support efforts against the Soviets (who had invaded the country in 1979). Spurred by Herring to help, Charlie visiteda refugee camp in Pakistan early in the war and, after seeing the suffering there, wassold on supporting them. He noted of this experience, …going through those hospitals and seeing,especially those children with their hands blown off from the mines that the Sovietswere dropping from their helicopters. 

That was perhaps the deciding thing… andit made a huge difference for the next 10 or 12 years of my life because I left thosehospitals determined, as long as I had a breath in my body and was a member in Congress, thatI was going to do what I could to make the Soviets pay for what they were doing! And that, “The U.S. had nothing whatsoeverto do with these people’s decision to fight … but we’ll be damned by history if welet them fight with stones.” Working over the next decade, through numerousclever dealings (and voting for military contracts in his colleagues’ districts to get theirsupport), Charlie succeeded in increasing support for the Afghans from a few millionin the early 1980s to $750 million (about $1.7 billion today) each year by the end ofthe decade. 

More than just money, at various times Charliealso provided things like mules (from Tennessee), stinger missiles, and walkie-talkies- someof the latter he purchased at a Virginia Radio Shack when the CIA refused to provide moreadvanced field radios. (Not that the CIA’s relationship with himwasn’t good, with Charlie becoming the first civilian to be given the CIA’s Honored ColleagueAward.) Charlie_Wilson_gravestone_IMG_6165Decliningto seek re-election in 1996, Charlie retired, ultimately dying of cardiac arrest on February10, 2010 at the age of 76 in Lufkin, Texas. 

And if you’re wondering about Charlie’sthoughts given what has happened in Afghanistan since the Soviets left, he laments that theU.S. didn’t choose to stick around and help rebuild Afghanistan, resulting in a powervacuum and instability in the region that allowed the Taliban regime to take hold. He further defended the former support theUnited States gave to certain infamous individuals, including Osama bin Laden, stating in a Timemagazine interview shortly before his death, We were fighting the evil empire. It would have been like not supplying theSoviets against Hitler in World War II. . . . Anyway, who the hell had ever heardof the Taliban then? And that, “You think this f—er [Aymanal-Zawahiri] they’re chasing around now in the tribal areas of Pakistan is terrifying? 

Well, what was terrifying was a nuclear exchangebetween us and the Russians. What was terrifying was the idea of a Sovietinvasion of Western Europe and what we would have had to do about that. I have absolutely zero regrets.”