Saltzman, Charles E. (Charles Eskridge), 1903-1994

Charles Eskridge Saltzman was born on September 19, 1903 in Zamboanga, in the Philippines. Saltzman¿s father, Charles McKinley Saltzman, was a captain in the Signal Corps of the U.S. Army, and was on the staff of Major General Leonard Wood at the time of his son¿s birth. The elder Saltzman would also later serve as the chairman of the Federal Radio Commission during the 1920s. Due to the postings of the elder Saltzman, young Charles and his mother, Mary Eskridge Saltzman, lived in the Philippines, Washington DC, New York, and Panama during the years in which he was growing up. One of young Charles¿ most vivid memories is that of witnessing the first public flight of the Wright Brothers, which took place at Fort Myer, Virginia in 1908, and which was arranged by Saltzman¿s father. Upon completing his schooling in New York, Charles wished to enter the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Because he was too young, he attended Cornell University for a year, and was admitted to West Point the following year. Upon graduation in 1925, Charles applied for and received a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford, where he attended Magdalen College. He obtained a bachelor¿s degree in 1928. Saltzman returned to the United States that fall, and was sent by the Army to Fort Humphreys (now Fort Belvoir) in Virginia, where he was assigned as a lieutenant in a combat engineer company. Along with his other duties, Saltzman was assigned to be a White House aide, working with the military aide to President Hoover, Lieutenant Colonel Campbell B. Hodges. In this function, Saltzman attended state dinners, where he escorted guests. In May 1930, Saltzman left the Army to accept a position with the New York Telephone Company, working as a commercial engineer and manager. Although he left active duty in the Army, upon the advice of President Hoover he signed up with the reserves, and later transferred to the National Guard. In 1935, Saltzman accepted a position as an assistant to the executive vice president of the New York Stock Exchange, and in the following years he was promoted to secretary and vice-president. Saltzman¿s National Guard unit was called into active service in October 1940, and after Pearl Harbor he was sent to Washington as assistant to the chief signal officer in the War Department. In May 1942, he was sent overseas, first to London and then to North Africa, where he served on the staff of Lieutenant General Mark Clark. Saltzman worked on Clark¿s staff in North Africa and later in Italy, where he was his deputy chief of staff. Saltzman also served with Clark in occupied Austria following the end of the war, returning to the United States in 1946, when he retired from active duty. Saltzman remained in the army reserves, however, and was promoted to the rank of major general in 1955. Upon returning to civilian life, Saltzman returned to the New York Stock Exchange. In the summer of 1947, he took another leave of absence to accept a position in the Department of State as Assistant Secretary of State for Occupied Areas, where he worked for two years with Secretary George C. Marshall. At the end of his period in Washington, Saltzman also resigned from the New York Stock Exchange, and became a partner in the newly established venture capital firm of Henry Sears & Co. During the 1952 presidential campaign, Saltzman and Sears worked with Sears¿ brother-in-law, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, to raise funds for the campaign of Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1954, Saltzman returned to Washington and the State Department, this time as the member of a committee appointed by Secretary John Foster Dulles to study and make recommendations about personnel administration within the department. Saltzman was later appointed Under Secretary of State for Administration in order to implement the committee¿s recommendations. In 1956 Saltzman accepted a position as a partner in the investment-banking firm of Goldman, Sachs & Company, a position he held until his retirement in 1973. During these years and in retirement Saltzman was active in many organizations, especially the Association of Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy, of which he was president, and the Advisory Committee of the Board of Visitors of The Citadel, the military academy whose president for a time was Saltzman¿s friend and former commanding officer, General Mark Clark. Charles E. Saltzman died at his home in New York on June 16, 1994.

From the description of Saltzman, Charles E. (Charles Eskridge), 1903-1994 (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration). naId: 10677880