Chester Bowles

Born:  Springfield, Massachusetts; April 5, 1901

Entry by Herbert F. Janick

"He tried to do too much, too soon." Such is the way that veteran political boss John Bailey summarized Chester Bowles' hectic single term as governor of Connecticut from 1949 to 1951. Bowles, who at age forty retired from Benton and Bowles, the New York advertising firm that he founded, to enter public service, was the authentic voice of liberalism in the state. A founding member of Americans for Democratic Action, he believed government had a duty to help people in need. In five unprecedented special sessions, Bowles as governor drove the Republican dominated legislature to accept a $95 million housing program, to appropriate more money for mental hospitals and schools, and to adopt higher welfare payments. He was rebuffed in his efforts to streamline government, to establish greater unemployment benefits, to set up a statewide medical program, and to establish "pay-as-you-use" financing. He so exhausted and irritated legislators in his drive "to make Connecticut a proving ground for competent liberalism" that the Republican candidate for the governorship in 1950, John Davis Lodge, was able to defeat Bowles.

Bowles had already accomplished much before becoming governor. He was educated at the Choate School and Yale University. During the 1920s and 1930s he and his partner built a flourishing Madison Avenue advertising agency. His wartime service as director of the Office of Price Administration, charged with such sensitive responsibilities as wage and price stabilization and rationing, won wide applause.

After his stint as governor, Bowles continued to be an important public servant. President Truman appointed him to his first tour as ambassador to India (1951-53), and he returned to New Dehli as ambassador under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson from 1963 to 1969. An admirer of Nehru, he was an outspoken advocate of increased American aid to India and other underdeveloped nations. Sandwiched between his diplomatic posts was a term in Congress representing the Second District in eastern Connecticut, the district where his home in Essex is located. Although he was considered for the post of secretary of state after serving as the top foreign policy advisor to John F. Kennedy in the campaign of 1960, Kennedy chose the more bland Dean Rusk for the sensitive spot. Bowles was selected as senior under secretary of state. He quickly, however, became disenchanted with Rusk, and in 1961 he accepted an appointment as a special advisor to the president on Asian, African, and Latin American affairs. Since his retirement from public life in 1969, he has been primarily engaged in writing.

For Further Reading

Bowles' autobiography, Promises to Keep: My Years in Public Life 1941-1971 (New York, 1971), is informative and well-written.

* Entry under revision.