Garrison Norton

File:William-Lloyd-Garrison-by-Jocelyn,-1833.jpg, by Nathaniel Jocelyn which Norton bequeathed to the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.]]

Garrison Norton was born in Chicago on October 9, 1900, the son of banker Charles Dyer Norton and the former Katherine McKim Garrison.{{cite news |title=MRS. NORTON, RELATED TO-ABOLITIONIST, 75 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1948/02/10/archives/mrs-norton-related-toabolitionist-75.html |access-date=2 December 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=10 February 1948}} His father was a "man of impeccable London tailoring and equally impeccable conservatism" who served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and Secretary to President Taft. Garrison, however, was described as "receptive to new ideas and as liberal as his father was conservative" even though he was also a Republican.

His maternal grandparents were editor Wendell Phillips Garrison (a son of the Civil War abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison) and the poet Lucy McKim Garrison (a daughter of Presbyterian minister James Miller McKim and sister to architect Charles Follen McKim).

He was raised in Washington, D. C. and Manhattan and attended the Groton School. He was educated at Harvard College, receiving a bachelor's degree cum laude in 1923. While at Harvard, he was a member of the school's first 150-pound varsity crew team.

After college, Norton joined the accounting firm of Arthur Young & Company. During this period, Norton became interested in aviation and received his Private Pilot License.{{cite news |last1=Times |first1=Special to The New York |title=A Flying Accountant; Garrison Norton |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1957/12/17/archives/a-flying-accountant-garrison-norton.html |access-date=2 December 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=17 December 1957}} This brought him in contact with several figures in the aviation industry, some of whom became his clients. He was made a partner of Arthur Young & Company in 1932.

Norton first joined the government in 1934, when he became deputy general manager of the Home Owners' Loan Corporation. He later went on to serve as assistant to the chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Authority and director of the Office of Transport and Communications in the State Department.

With the outbreak of World War II, Norton enlisted in the United States Navy serving as a Navy flight instructor and with the Bureau of Aeronautics, ultimately attaining the rank of captain by the war's end in 1945. In 1947, President of the United States Harry S. Truman nominated Norton as an Assistant Secretary of State, with responsibility for international transportation and communications.{{cite news |last1=TIMES |first1=Special to THE NEW YORK |title=PRESIDENT NAMES AN AIDE TO CLAYTON; Garrison Norton Is Nominated Assistant Secretary for Air, Ships, Communications |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1947/03/13/archives/president-names-an-aide-to-clayton-garrison-norton-is-nominated.html |access-date=2 December 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=13 March 1947}}{{cite news |title=Senate Confirms Garrison Norton |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1947/03/22/archives/senate-confirms-garrison-norton.html |access-date=2 December 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=22 March 1947}} He held this office until 1949.{{cite web |title=Garrison Norton - People - Department History - Office of the Historian |url=https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/norton-garrison |website=history.state.gov |publisher=United States Department of State |access-date=2 December 2021}}

He served as a director of the Export-Import Bank and as an alternate governor of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund before leaving the State Department in 1949. In the early 1950s, he worked for Donald A. Quarles, the Secretary of the Air Force, in research and development. In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower nominated Norton to succeed James H. Smith Jr. as Assistant Secretary of the Navy (AIR),{{cite news |title=NAVY AIR AIDE NAMED; Garrison Norton Is Selected to Succeed J.H. Smith Jr. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1956/05/29/archives/navy-air-aide-named-garrison-norton-is-selected-to-succeed-jh-smith.html |access-date=2 December 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=29 May 1956}} and he would serve in this office from July 7, 1956, until February 5, 1959. His primary goal as Assistant Secretary of the Navy was with expanding the Navy's research and development capabilities. He was the last Assistant Secretary of the Navy (AIR), as the post was re-designated Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Research and Development) in 1959.

Norton left government in 1959, becoming president of the Institute for Defense Analyses, succeeding Gen. James McCormack, who became vice president of MIT.{{cite news |last1=Times |first1=Special to The New York |title=ARMS STUDY AIDE SET; Garrison Norton to Be Head of Defense Analysis Unit |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1958/12/20/archives/arms-study-aide-set-garrison-norton-to-be-head-of-defense-analysis.html |access-date=2 December 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=20 December 1958}} He served as president until his retirement in the 1960s. He also went on to serve as chairman of the Carnegie Institution for Science.{{cite news |title=GARRISON NORTON, FEDERAL OFFICIAL, DIES |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1995/09/11/garrison-norton-federal-official-dies/59f5eef1-d603-42a7-b580-7f814e678750/ |access-date=2 December 2021 |newspaper=Washington Post |date=September 11, 1995}}

In 1943, Norton was married to Emily McMullan, who trained as a surgical nurse and served in World War II. Together, they had a home in Georgetown and a farm in North Haven, Maine. They were the parents of a son and daughter:

• Glenavie Norton, the Chair of Americans for Democratic Action in Southeast, Pennsylvania.{{cite book |last1=Reese |first1=Thelma |last2=Kittredge |first2=B. J. |title=How Seniors are Saving the World: Retirement Activism to the Rescue! |date=2020 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-5381-2698-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z3TTDwAAQBAJ |access-date=2 December 2021 |language=en}}
• Charles Dyer Norton II (d. 1970)

He died on September 9, 1995, at the age of 94 in his home in Washington, D. C.{{cite news |last1=Pace |first1=Eric |title=Garrison Norton, 94, Assistant Secretary Of State and Navy |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/11/obituaries/garrison-norton-94-assistant-secretary-of-state-and-navy.html |access-date=2 December 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=11 September 1995}}

{{reflist|30em}}

• [https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/norton-garrison Garrison Norton (1900–1995)] at the Office of the Historian, Foreign Service Institute, United States Department of State

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before=James H. Smith Jr.|

title=Assistant Secretary of the Navy (AIR)|

after=James H. Wakelin Jr.
(as Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Research and Development))|

years=July 7, 1956 – February 5, 1959

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Category:1995 deaths

Category:United States Assistant Secretaries of the Navy

Category:1900 births

Category:Harvard College alumni

Category:Groton School alumni