A Busy General
A man to whom the responsibilities of retirement are proving to be crowning successes is Lieutenant General Willard S. Paul '16, USA, Ret. Most recently he was named by former President Herbert Hoover to work on the ten-member task force to study problems of Federal Service for the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government, which is under the general chairmanship of Mr. Hoover. Among other aspects of the Federal personnel problem, the Commission will look into the program and practices of the Civil Service Commission. It has also been announced that General Paul will serve as Assistant to the Director of the Office of Defense Mobilization for Non-Military Defense. In this post he will aid in developing measures to assist federal agencies and industries to insure continuity of essential governmental functions and wartime production in the event of attack.
The only officer among Dartmouth alumni to be raised to the rank of lieutenant general without having graduuated from West Point, General Paul began his career as a private in 1916, and retired in 1948. He served on the Mexican border, and, in World War I with the A.E.F. During World War II he was Commanding General, 26th Infantry Division, and following the war, served with SHAEF in Europe until October 1945, when he was made Assistant Chief of Staff, G-1, Office of the Chief of Staff, in Washington, until his retirement three years later. He received the M.A. degree in Public Administration at American University in 1942.
It was General Paul, whose record spells out his value in emergencies as well as the long hauls, who established the supply system for the Army Ground Forces during the period following the Pearl Harbor attack. In 1949 he became adviser and consultant to the American National Red Cross and he has frequently, since his retirement, served on top-level advisory boards and as a confidential aide to the Secretary of Defense. Although General Paul has received numerous awards and decorations, perhaps one of his best citations was the informal one bestowed upon him in 1948 by General Eisenhower and quoted in the 1916 Newsletter: "Paul has three interests in life — Dartmouth, the Yankee Division and the Army."
