Карл Винсон: Американ саяхатшысы және Әскери-теңіз күштерінің дамуына ықпал еткен тұлға

American politician
the politician

Carl Vinson (November 18, 1883 – June 1, 1981) was an American politician who served in the U. S. House of Representatives for over 50 years and was influential in the 20th century expansion of the U. S. Navy. He was a member of the Democratic Party and represented Georgia in the House from 1914 to 1965. He was known as "The Father of the Two Ocean Navy". He is the longest serving member of the United States House of Representatives from the state of Georgia. From 1961 to 1965, he served as the Dean of the US House of Representatives as the longest serving member of the body. Carl Vinson, the third , is named after him.

Vinson was born in Baldwin County, Georgia, where he attended local schools and Georgia Military College. He graduated with a law degree from Mercer University in 1902 and was a member of the Kappa Alpha Order. During his tenure in the U. S. House, Vinson was a champion for national defense and especially the U. S. Navy and the U. S. Marine Corps. He joined the House Naval Affairs Committee shortly after World War I and became the ranking Democratic member in the early 1920s. He was the only Democrat appointed to the Morrow Board, which reviewed the status of aviation in America in the mid 1920s. In 1931, Vinson became chairman of the House Naval Affairs Committee. In 1934, Vinson helped push the Vinson–Trammell Act, along with Democratic Senator Park Trammell of Florida. The bill authorized the replacement of obsolete vessels by new construction and a gradual increase of ships within the limits of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 and London Naval Treaty of 1930. Initial funding for the Vinson–Trammell Navy Act was provided by the Emergency Appropriations Act of 1934. This was necessary as during the previous administration, not a single major warship was laid down and the US Navy was both aging and losing ground to the Japanese Navy. Japan repudiated the naval treaties in late 1934. Vinson later was primarily responsible for additional naval expansion legislation, the Naval Act of 1938 ("Second Vinson Act") and the Third Vinson Act of 1940 (which was essentially a mere prelude to the Two Oceans Act that followed a month later), as well as the Two Ocean Navy Act of 1940. The ambitious program called for by this series of laws helped the U. S. Navy as the country entered World War II, as new ships were able to match the latest ships from Japan. At the end of World War II, Congress had authorized four Naval four star officers to be promoted to Fleet Admiral. A staunch partisan of Admiral William Halsey, Jr., Vinson blocked the nomination of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance several times, although the majority thought him more deserving, to ensure that Halsey got the fourth billet. Congress eventually responded by passing an unprecedented act that specified that Spruance would remain on a full admiral's pay once retired until his death. Following World War II, the House Naval Affairs Committee was merged with the Military Affairs Committee to become the House Armed Services Committee (this consolidation mirrored the establishment of the Department of Defense when the old Departments of War and of the Navy were consolidated). When the Republicans won control of Congress in the 1946 election, Vinson served as ranking minority member of the committee for two years before becoming Chairman in early 1949, when the Democrats were again in majority; a position held for four years until the Republicans briefly returned to the majority for a single congressional term after the 1952 elections. After the Democrats retook congress in the 1954 midterms, Vinson again became Chairman, a position he held until his retirement in 1965. In this role, Vinson adopted a committee rule that came to be known as the "Vinson rule", which limited the number of questions a junior member of the committee could ask to one question per year of service on the committee. As chairman, Vinson oversaw the modernization of the military as its focus shifted to the Cold War. He was also committee chair when Congress authorized the procurement of the first nuclear powered aircraft carriers, starting with Enterprise in the late 1950s. A staunch segregationist, Vinson voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act and in 1956, signed "The Southern Manifesto". Other Southern politicians signed this in resistance to the ruling by the United States Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) that segregated public education was unconstitutional, and that states needed to integrate their public schools. Vinson did not seek re election in 1964 and retired from Congress in January 1965.

Vinson married Mary Green of Ohio in 1921. She died in 1949 after a long illness. He is buried in Memory Hill Cemetery in Milledgeville, Georgia. At the time of his death, Vinson was the last living member of the House of Representatives who was serving at the time of the United States' declaration of war against the German Empire, which precipitated the United States' entry into World War I.

In recognition of his efforts on behalf of the U. S. Navy, a nuclear powered aircraft carrier was named the Carl Vinson, an honor rarely given to a person while living. On March 15, 1980, at age 96, he attended the ship's launching. together with the related Mount Vinson and Vinson Plateau. Carl Vinson served 26 consecutive terms in the U. S. House, rarely running against significant opposition. He served for 50 years and one month, a record that stood until 1992, when the mark was surpassed by Jamie Whitten of Mississippi. For his commitment, Vinson was awarded the prestigious Sylvanus Thayer Award by the United States Military Academy. In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded Vinson the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Special Distinction, the highest award the President can give to a civilian. During his own tenure in the House, Johnson had served for years as a junior member of the House Naval Affairs Committee under Vinson. The Department of Veterans' Affairs Medical Center in Dublin, Georgia, serving veterans in Central and Southern Georgia, is named for Vinson. The University of Georgia hosts the Carl Vinson Institute of Government. Athens, Georgia, is the site of Carl Vinson Park. Carl Vinson Parkway is located in Warner Robins, Georgia. Georgia Military College formerly had a barracks named for him. It was razed in the mid 2000s. Vinson Hall Retirement Community in McLean, Virginia, is named after Carl Vinson. US Federal Standard 595 names a color in his honor: reference 25630, "Carl Vinson Blue." The color can be approximated by hexadecimal color #dad3d8