Howard Charles Petersen (May 7, 1910 – December 28, 1995)[1] was an American government official and banker. He was theUnited States Assistant Secretary of War from 1945 to 1947.
Petersen was born inEast Chicago, Indiana. He graduated fromDePauw University in 1930 and theUniversity of Michigan Law School in 1933. From 1933 to 1941, Petersen was an associate in the New York law firm Cravath, deGersdorff, Swaine & Wood (the predecessor firm toCravath, Swaine & Moore).
While at the Cravath firm, Petersen was introduced toGrenville Clark, through which connection he came to be a principal drafter of theSelective Training and Service Act of 1940. In 1944 Petersen served as Executive Assistant to the Undersecretary of War. In December 1945, Petersen was appointed theAssistant Secretary of War by PresidentHarry S. Truman, a position he held until August 1947. He was the last person to hold that title, since theDepartment of War became part of the newDepartment of Defense in 1947.
He worked on the economic recovery of occupiedGermany and the Western Allies and supervised U.S. military occupational activities in Germany,Japan,Korea,Austria, andItaly. One of his significant contributions was to help prevent famine in Europe by laying the groundwork for theMarshall Plan.
Petersen joinedFidelity-Philadelphia Trust Company in 1947 as executive vice president and went on to serve as the bank's president (1950–66), CEO (1966–75) and chairman (1966–78).[2]
Meanwhile, from 1961 to 1963, Petersen served as Special Assistant to PresidentJohn F. Kennedy for International Trade Policy, in which he managed Kennedy's controversial campaign for a new foreign trade policy. His main task was to assist with the passage of theTrade Expansion Act of 1962, and he also negotiated the conclusion of the 1960-62General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations with the European Economic Community.
In addition, Petersen served as a Director of thePanama Canal Corporation, and a trustee of theCarnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Petersen was chairman of the boards of theInstitute for Advanced Study inPrinceton, New Jersey, theUniversity of Pennsylvania Museum, and theMarshall Foundation, and chairman and advisory committee member ofExport-Import Bank. He was also a member of the Century Association, the American Philosophical Society, and the Council on Foreign Relations.
In 1936, Petersen married Elizabeth Anna Watts of Princeton, Indiana, with whom he had two children: Elizabeth Anna and Howard Jr.[3] Elizabeth married then-Harvard instructorHerbert Spiro in June 1958.[4][5] Petersen was survived by his daughter and two grandchildren,Peter Spiro and Alexander Spiro.
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