Weekend Economists Make War on Charlie Wilson August 22-24, 2014

[Demeter]

4. Soviet-Afghan war and Retirement

In 1980, Wilson read an Associated Press dispatch on the congressional wires describing the refugees fleeing Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. The communist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan had taken over power during the Saur revolution and asked the Soviet Union to help suppress resistance from the mujahideen. According to biographer George Crile III, Wilson called the staff of the House Appropriations Committee dealing with "black appropriations" and requested a two-fold appropriation increase for Afghanistan. Because Wilson had just been named to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense (which is responsible for funding CIA operations), his request went through.

That was not the last time he increased the CIA budget for its Afghan operation. In 1983, he won an additional $40 million, $17 million of which was allocated for anti-aircraft weapons to shoot down Mil Mi-24 Hind helicopters. The next year, CIA officer Gust Avrakotos directly approached Wilson—breaking the CIA's policy against lobbying Congress for money—asking Wilson for $50 million more. Wilson agreed and convinced Congress, saying, "The U.S. had nothing whatsoever to do with these people's decision to fight ... but we'll be damned by history if we let them fight with stones." Later, Wilson succeeded in giving the Afghans $300 million of unused Pentagon money before the end of the fiscal year. Thus, Wilson directly influenced the level of United States government support for the Afghan Mujahideen. Wilson has said that the covert operation succeeded because "there was no partisanship or damaging leaks." Michael Pillsbury, a senior Pentagon official, used Wilson's funding to provide Stinger missiles to the Afghan resistance in a controversial decision.

Joanne Herring, along with others, played a role in helping the Afghan resistance fighters get support and military equipment from the United States government. She persuaded Wilson to visit the Pakistani leadership, and after meeting with them he was taken to a major Pakistan-based Afghan refugee camp so he could see for himself the atrocities committed by the Soviets against the Afghan people. About that visit, Wilson later said that it "was the experience that will always be seared in my memory, was going through those hospitals and seeing, especially those children with their hands blown off from the mines that the Soviets were dropping from their helicopters. That was perhaps the deciding thing... and it made a huge difference for the next 10 or 12 years of my life because I left those hospitals determined, as long as I had a breath in my body and was a member in Congress, that I was going to do what I could to make the Soviets pay for what they were doing!" In 2008, Wilson said he had "got involved in Afghanistan because I went there and I saw what the Soviets were doing. And I saw the refugee camps."

For his efforts, Wilson was presented with the Honored Colleague Award by the CIA. He became the first civilian to receive the award. However, Wilson's role remains controversial because most of the aid was supplied to Islamist hardliner Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, now a senior Taliban leader and a supporter of al-Qaeda.

The decision of the Soviet Union to withdraw from Afghanistan and declare the invasion a mistake led to Wilson commending the Soviet leadership on the floor of the House of Representatives. He also supported United States involvement in the Bosnian War, touring the former Yugoslavia over five days in January 1993; on his return he urged the Clinton administration to lift the arms embargo on Bosnia, remarking "This is good versus evil and, if we do not want to Americanize this, then what do we want to Americanize? We have to stand for something."

"Good Time Charlie"

Wilson unashamedly lived an extravagant and flamboyant life. Beginning in his naval years, Wilson enjoyed partying and having nights on the town. Wilson was a self-proclaimed "ladies' man" and the news media reported on his exotic bedroom complete with hot tub and handcuffs where he engaged in romantic affairs. Wilson's "Good Time Charlie" image was first exposed to the public in a Washington Post editorial by Kathleen McLean in 1978. Over the course of his congressional career, when reporters questioned Wilson about his constituents' view of their representative, Wilson reported that they knew they were not electing a "constipated monk" to office. Wilson unashamedly embraced his playboy persona and never played down his "Good Time" image in public.

Wilson's enjoyment of parties led him to invest with two Texas businessmen to open the Elan-Washington Club. This club promised to offer an attractive spot where professionals could get together and relax from a long day at work. To increase the number of club patrons, Wilson passed out memberships to his congressional colleagues. Halfway through his passing out memberships, Wilson decided that his actions might not be deemed ethical by congress and commented that he "was ethicized right out of business."

Throughout the course of his life, Wilson drank heavily, which may have been a factor in his divorce from Jerry. While in Washington, Wilson became a functioning alcoholic and suffered from severe bouts of depression and insomnia, and his drinking intensified during his involvement in Afghanistan. Wilson's drunkenness also led to a scandal in 1980 when an eyewitness reported that Wilson's Lincoln Continental hit a Mazda in a hit-and-run accident on the Washington DC's Key Bridge the night before his first trip to Pakistan. Although he was never convicted, this accident illustrates Wilson's recklessness with alcohol during his involvement in Afghanistan.

During one of his foreign excursions Wilson was transported to a hospital in Germany where doctors told Wilson his heart was failing due to his excessive drinking. Wilson sought a second and third opinion at hospitals in Bethesda and Houston and the German doctors' conclusions were confirmed: Wilson had to stop drinking. After these diagnoses Wilson quit drinking hard liquor but continued to drink wine for several years. His excessive drinking and associated heart problems forced Wilson to have a heart transplant in September 2007. Despite his continuous struggle with alcoholism, Wilson finally quit drinking after marrying Barbara Alberstadt, a former ballerina, in 1999.

In addition to alcohol abuse, Wilson allegedly used illegal drugs. In 1980, Wilson was accused of using cocaine at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas; however, the investigation by Justice Department attorney Rudy Giuliani was dropped due to lack of evidence. Liz Wickersham told investigators that she saw Charlie use cocaine only once in the Cayman Islands, but this was outside United States jurisdiction. In "The Charlie Wilson Real Story" Wilson reveals he traveled to Las Vegas in the summer of 1980, and recalls an experience with two strippers in a hot tub.

The girls had cocaine, and the music was loud. It was total happiness. And both of them had ten long, red fingernails with an endless supply of beautiful white powder.... The feds spent a million bucks trying to figure out whether, when those fingernails passed under my nose, did I inhale or exhale, and I ain't telling.
— Charlie Wilson

When questioned about his past alleged cocaine use in 2007 Wilson reaffirmed "Nobody knows the answer to that and I ain't telling".

Wilson was also a lifelong rogue and continuously surrounded himself with gorgeous women. In addition to his "Angels" in the office, Wilson always had a female escort when he was not on the House floor. Wilson's primary motivator to be on the Kennedy Center Committee was so he always had a place to take a date. Also, following his second trip to Pakistan, Wilson always brought a female companion with him. At one point he even brought Carol Shannon to entertain his hosts with her belly dancing ability. Bringing women to Pakistan created tension between Wilson and the CIA in 1987 when the agency refused to fund his girl friend's travel expenses. In response, Wilson cut the agency's funding the next year. Wilson's exotic bedroom is indicative of his enjoyment of women, but his relationships were not just about sex. According to Joanne Herring, Wilson truly cared about his dates and he thoroughly enjoyed being a romantic. Although he was an "unapologetic sexist, chauvinistic redneck," he attracted many gorgeous ladies and treated them well.

Wilson has been said to have lived life as "one big party", and lived by the mantra that he could "take his job seriously without taking himself seriously."

Retirement

Wilson retired from Congress in October 1996 and became a lobbyist for Pakistan before retiring to Lufkin. He donated his congressional papers to Stephen F. Austin State University. In 1999, he married Barbara Alberstadt, his second marriage. Wilson received a heart transplant in 2007, and continued to follow the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where he expressed concerns about events in that region. In July 2009, the University of Texas System Board of Regents established the Charles N. Wilson Chair in Pakistan Studies, which encourages research in the geo-political importance of Pakistan, as well as its culture, history, and literature.