Eugene Luther Vidal

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Eugene Luther Vidal, Sr.
EugeneVidal.jpg
Eugene Vidal, standing, third from left, with Amelia Earhart, sitting, left
Born (1895-04-13)April 13, 1895
Madison, South Dakota
Died Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist.
Los Angeles, California
Spouse(s) Nina Gore
(m.1922-1935; divorced)
Katharine Roberts
(m.1939-1969; his death)
Children Gore Vidal

Eugene Luther "Gene" Vidal (/vˈdɑːl/;[1] April 13, 1895 – February 20, 1969) was an American athlete and aviation pioneer. He was the father of author Gore Vidal.

In his obituary, Time noted: "Eugene Vidal, 73, pioneer promoter of civil aviation and father of author Gore Vidal; in Los Angeles, Calif. Vidal starred in football at West Point and competed in the decathlon in the Antwerp Olympic Games of 1920. He later taught aviation and coached football at the academy, resigned his commission in 1926 to become assistant general manager of Transcontinental Air Transport (now TWA).

From 1933 to 1937 he was Director of Air Commerce in Washington, where he organized and expanded the Government's civil aeronautics program. Later he served as a director of Northeast Airlines and as aviation adviser to the Army Chief of Staff."[2]

Life and career

Vidal was born in 1895 in Madison, South Dakota, the son of Margaret Ann (née Rewalt) and Felix Luther Vidal.[3][4] His paternal grandfather, Eugen Fidel Vidal, was born in Feldkirch, Austria, of Romansh descent, and his paternal grandmother, Emma Hartmann, was Swiss.[5]

Vidal was a versatile athlete. At the University of South Dakota (USD) from 1913 to 1916, he was a football, basketball, baseball and track letterman. Vidal was captain of the university's 1915 football and 1916 basketball teams, leading the basketball team in scoring in 1915 and 1916, thereby assisting the university in winning an Intercollegiate Conference Title during his participation. Vidal was appointed to the United States Military Academy in July 1916, where he became the captain of the football team.[6]

His class graduated on November 1, 1918, 19 months early because of World War I, with Vidal ranked 72nd in general merit. He was commissioned a 2nd lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers but was not even able to enter his branch school before the war ended on November 11, 1918. In 1920 he transferred to the Air Service and was trained to fly at Brooks and Kelly Fields, Texas. After receiving his wings in 1921, he returned to West Point in the dual capacity of instructor in aeronautics and athletics coach, the first member of the Air Service to be so assigned. Vidal was a member of the Air Service when it became the Air Corps on July 2, 1926, but resigned soon after to go into Florida real estate. When he lost all his investments in the subsequent "bust", he turned in 1928 to commercial aviation, joining Transcontinental Air Transport (T.A.T.), where being both an engineer and pilot he rapidly rose to assistant general manager.

Vidal participated in the 1920 and 1924 Olympic Games. He finished seventh in the decathlon at the 1920 games in Antwerp and was an assistant track coach in charge of the modern pentathlon and decathlon squads at the 1924 summer games in Paris. He was the first graduate of USD to be on an Olympic team.[7][8]

Vidal played for the American Professional Football Association's Washington Senators in 1921.

In 1922, Vidal married Nina Gore, daughter of Thomas Gore, Democratic senator from Oklahoma.[9] They divorced in 1935; she subsequently married the wealthy stockbroker Hugh D. Auchincloss.[10] In 1939, Vidal married Katharine Roberts, with whom he had two children.[11]

He became one of the pioneers in the commercial aviation industry and helped found three American airlines during the 1920s and '30s; Eastern Airlines, TWA and Northeast Airlines, along with aviator Amelia Earhart. Vidal experimented with a wood-resin composite process similar to Duramold that was planned to be used on the Aircraft Research BT-11. His experiments in composites with fiberglass yields a small business building trays and dinghies.[12] He was also an investor in the Boston and Maine Railroad.

It is alleged in Susan Butler's 1999 book East to the Dawn: The Life of Amelia Earhart[13] that Vidal had a romantic relationship with Earhart, with whom he worked when she joined T.A.T. in 1929. His son Gore Vidal's cover testimonial adds credence to the story. In 1930 he, Earhart, and veteran airmail pilot Paul Collins left T.A.T. to organize the first commuter airline, the New York, Philadelphia and Washington Airway Corporation, known as the Ludington Line, financed and owned by brothers Nicholas and Charles Townsend Ludington. In its first year, using 10-passenger Stinson SM-6000B tri-motors on an hourly daytime schedule between Washington, D.C. and New York, Ludington became first purely passenger air carrier to show a profit. However all three left the airline in 1932 when its profitability declined because of a failure in 1931 to obtain an airmail contract and its subsidies (which subsequently led to the Air Mail scandal in 1934).

Vidal joined the United States Department of Commerce, appointed as Assistant Director for Air Regulation. In September 1933, with Earhart's recommendation to President Franklin Roosevelt, he became the first Director of the new Bureau of Air Commerce, serving until 1937. Soon after his appointment he appeared on the December 18, 1933 cover of Time magazine and was recognized by the United States Chamber of Commerce as one of the "12 Outstanding Young Men of America."

Later in life, Vidal served as a director of Northeast Airlines and was an aviation adviser to the Army Chief of Staff.[2]

Vidal died in 1969 in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 73.[2]

Legacy

References

Notes

  1. "Index." TIME, v. 22, p. 46.
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Milestones: Feb. 28, 1969." Time magazine, February 28, 1969. Retrieved: March 7, 2013.
  3. Longyard "Vidal, Eugene." 1974, p. 443.
  4. http://www.ydr.com/story/news/history/blogs/york-town-square/2007/04/23/post-52/31612863/
  5. Parini, Jay (2015). Empire of Self: A Life of Gore Vidal. New York: Penguin Random House. ISBN 978-0-385-53757-5. Retrieved 2015-12-23
  6. "Vidal New Army Captain." The New York Times, January 11, 1918.
  7. "U Alumnus Derek Miles Earns Place on U.S. Olympic Team." University of South Dakota Press, July 13, 2004.
  8. 8.0 8.1 "Gene Vidal." South Dakota Hall of Fame.
  9. "Miss Nina Gore marries." The New York Times, January 12, 1922.
  10. ""Gore Vidal: Laughing Cassandra." Time, March 1, 1976.
  11. "Vidal, Gore, 1925-. Papers: Guide." Harvard Library.
  12. Vidal 2007, p. 166.
  13. Butler 1997, pp. 294–295.
  14. " 'Amelia' Full credits." IMDb. Retrieved: January 3, 2010.

Bibliography

  • Butler, Susan. East to the Dawn: The Life of Amelia Earhart. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1997. ISBN 0-306-80887-0.
  • Longyard, William H. Who's Who in Aviation History: 500 Biographies. Toronto, Ontario: Elsevier Canada, 1974. ISBN 978-0-08018-205-6.
  • Vidal, Gore. Point to Point Navigation: A Memoir. New York: Vintage Books, 2007. ISBN 978-0-30727-501-1.

External links