QUESTIONS:
1. Interest in career military officers’ seeking political office has been sparked by retired Gen. Wesley Clark’s recent announcement that he will run for the Democratic nomination for President. While Dwight D. Eisenhower was the last general retired from active duty to be nominated for President by a major party, who was the last reserve general to be nominated?
2. What was the last presidential race in which both major party candidates had been generals?
3. Who was the last retired general to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives?
4. Who was the last retired general to run for the House?
5. Prior to Colin Powell, who was the last retired general to serve as secretary of state?
ANSWERS:
1. Republican Barry Goldwater, reserve general in the Air Force, in 1964.
2. The race of 1880, in which Democrat Winfield Scott Hancock and Republican James Garfield had both been generals in the U.S. Army.
3. James Devereux, who had been a U.S. Marine general in World War II, was Republican U.S. representative from Maryland from 1950-58.
4. James Dozier, captured by the Red Guards in Italy and then rescued by U.S. troops in 1982, who six years later lost the Republican nomination for Congress in Florida’s 14th District to present Rep. Porter Goss.
5. Alexander M. Haig, secretary of state in 1981.
