[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 1]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 398-399]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    TRIBUTE TO DONALD MALCOLM WILSON

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. RUSH D. HOLT

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                        Friday, January 27, 2012

  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I rise to mark the passing of Donald Malcolm 
Wilson who spent a lifetime in communications during some of the most 
historic occasions of the twentieth century. Until his death on 
November 29, 2011, he was the last surviving member of the Executive 
Committee of the National Security Council (EXCOMM), the ad hoc group 
formed by President John F. Kennedy, which informed U.S. policy during 
the most dangerous days of the Cold War--the Cuban Missile Crisis of 
October 1962. At the time, Don was deputy director of the U.S. 
Information Agency, second only to the legendary Edward R. Murrow, who 
was the director.
  Because Mr. Murrow was ill at the time, Mr. Wilson states in his 
book, The First 78 Years, he was asked to join EXCOMM, whose other 17 
members included Vice President Lyndon Johnson, Secretary of Defense 
Robert McNamara, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Under Secretary of State 
George Ball, and Gen. Maxwell Taylor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 
Staff. Then 37 years of age, Mr. Wilson was one of the youngest people 
in the room. It was his job to get the American side of the story out 
to the world.
  The Crisis grew from the U.S. discovery that the Soviets had secretly 
built missile bases in Cuba. Evidence for the bases was collected 
photographically by reconnaissance flights, which some members of the 
administration did not want to release because they would reveal the 
scope of U.S. secret aerial activity. However, Mr. Wilson argued 
persuasively that release of the photos would convince skeptical allies 
that the bases actually existed. The photos were released as Soviet 
ships headed toward Cuba to deliver ballistic missiles to the formerly 
secret locations.
  EXCOMM members were divided on two options: an invasion of Cuba or a 
U.S. Navy blockade of the island to prevent the Soviets from delivering 
the weapons. President Kennedy decided on the blockade. On Thursday, 
October 24, 1962, described by Robert Kennedy as the day in his life 
that was, ``The most

[[Page 399]]

trying, the most difficult, and the most filled with tension,'' Soviet-
bloc ships approached the U.S. Navy ships surrounding the island. Much 
to the relief of the nation and the world, on orders from Premier 
Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet ships reversed course and the danger of what 
would surely have been a nuclear war was averted.
  Dean Rusk famously remarked of that incident that, ``We're eyeball to 
eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked.''
  On the day President Kennedy was shot, Mr. Wilson was again at the 
helm of the USIA, working to reassure the nation's people that the 
democratic process would continue as described in the Constitution of 
the United States and that their lives and safety would not be altered 
by the assassination.
  Proud of the fact that the USIA had become an integral part of U.S. 
foreign policy during his tenure, Mr. Wilson left the agency in 1965 to 
return to his first employer, Time Inc., where he became general 
manager of Time-Life International.
  He took a leave of absence in 1968 to work on Robert Kennedy's 
presidential campaign and was 50 feet behind Kennedy when he was shot. 
At that point, Mr. Wilson wrote, he decided not to be involved again in 
government service. Speaking for himself and his wife Susan Wilson, he 
stated, ``Two assassinations, which had broken our hearts, were 
enough.'' Nonetheless in 2000, at the age of 74, he made a brief return 
to the political arena during the primaries to support Bill Bradley's 
campaign for the presidential nomination.
  In 1970, Mr. Wilson was named Vice President for Public Affairs at 
Time Inc., a position he filled for the next 19 years, where he 
initiated internal and external communications programs, including the 
school program, ``Time to Read,'' matching contributions for employees 
who donated to charity, and the development of a new and modern Time 
Inc. logo. News tours took him to Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and 
Europe.
  He was at the helm in 1984 when Israeli General Ariel Sharon sued 
Time magazine for libel. Although Time won the case, it lost the public 
relations war, Mr. Wilson states in his autobiography. In retrospect, 
Mr. Wilson believed that the case should have been settled before it 
went to court. Another explosive story in 1971 was a test of Mr. 
Wilson's skill in public relations. An authorized biography of 
reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes was scheduled to be excerpted in 
Life. Before being exposed as a fraud by Hughes himself, the author 
Clifford Irving provided material he said was handwritten by Howard 
Hughes that experts deemed authentic. The story unraveled before the 
excerpts were published.
  Don Wilson was born in Montclair, New Jersey, on June 27, 1925. 
Republican Calvin Coolidge was president and the George Washington and 
Golden Gate Bridges had not yet been built. Mr. Wilson's interest in 
politics began at an early age, and he was avid in his support for 
Franklin Roosevelt, despite the fact that his father was a Republican. 
He attended Montclair Academy, Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts. In 
1943 he joined the U.S. Army Air Corps and was commissioned a second 
lieutenant as a B-17 navigator. Before World War II ended, he flew six 
missions over Europe with the 303rd Bomb Group.
  He then finished his education at Yale University, where he 
gravitated to journalism and wrote a column for the Yale Daily News. 
Upon graduation, Mr. Wilson was hired by Life magazine as an office boy 
and worked his way up through the ranks from researcher to reporter to 
foreign correspondent. He covered the Korean War and the French 
Indochina War before becoming Washington Bureau chief in charge of 
coverage of the U.S. government. In 1960 he joined the Kennedy 
presidential campaign and became deputy director of the USIA in 1962.
  In 1957, he married Susan Neuberger, a researcher at Life magazine, 
who, he states in his autobiography, impressed him immediately with 
``her crisp questions and easy sense of humor.'' In 1978, she was 
appointed to the New Jersey State Board of Education and subsequently 
devoted 23 years to the Network for Family Life Education, now Answer, 
a nonprofit organization that promotes education on sexuality. She and 
Don are the parents of three children, Dwight M. Wilson, Katherine L. 
Wilson and Penelope Wilson.
  In the 1960s Don and Susie Wilson moved to Princeton, and when Mr. 
Wilson retired from Time Inc., he and George Tabor, formerly Time 
magazine's business editor, launched NJBIZ, a business paper covering 
the state of New Jersey. He co-founded the nonprofit Independent 
Journalism Foundation in 1991 with James Greenfield, a former New York 
Times editorial board member. Following the collapse of communism in 
the Soviet Union, the IJF sponsored training programs for journalists 
in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia. He was a member of the Century 
Association and the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City.
  Don Wilson died at peace in the arms of his beloved wife, Susie, 
shortly after a Thanksgiving celebration filled with tributes from his 
children and grandchildren.
  His interest in politics continues to live on in the Donald M. Wilson 
Fellowship at the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights. 
His legacy as an imaginative and innovative communicator continues on.

                          ____________________