Charlie Wilson Views

General Goods

I really wasn't able to enjoy all the hoopla ... over the film because I had come to the premiere against my doctor's wishes, and I paid a terrible price for that afterwards, he says in a phone interview from New York, alluding to what he calls a setback. But he's feeling much better now, he adds, and he's finally getting a chance to promote the film in which he's the central character. ( Charlie Wilson's War came out on DVD Tuesday.)

Indeed, Charlie Wilson loves life in general. The U.S. Naval Academy grad and Navy veteran was elected to Congress in 1972, a Democrat bucking the Nixon landslide, and quickly became known for his high-living escapades, which earned him the nickname Good Time Charlie, and shrewd accumulation of political chits.

He was best known for leading Congress into supporting Operation Cyclone, the largest-ever Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) covert operation, which under the Reagan administration supplied military equipment, including anti-aircraft weapons such as Stinger antiaircraft missiles, and paramilitary officers from their Special Activities Division to the Afghan Mujahideen during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. His behind-the-scenes campaign was the subject of the non-fiction book Charlie Wilson's War by George Crile and a subsequent film adaptation starring Tom Hanks as Wilson.

According to Wilson himself, he first entered politics as a teenager by running a campaign against his next-door neighbor, city council incumbent Charles Hazard. When Wilson was 13, his 14-year-old dog entered Hazard's yard. Hazard retaliated by mixing crushed glass into the dog's food, causing fatal internal bleeding. Being a farmer's son, Wilson was able to get a driving permit at age 13, which enabled him to drive 96 voters, mainly black citizens from poor neighborhoods, to the polls. As they left the car, he told each of them that he didn't want to influence their vote, but that the incumbent Hazard had purposely killed his dog. After Hazard was defeated by a margin of 16 votes, Wilson went to his house to tell him he shouldn't poison any more dogs.[2] Wilson cited this as the day [he] fell in love with America. This event was retold in the 2007 film Charlie Wilson's War.