William Lockhart Clayton

Businessman, US Government Advisor. A Shaper of the Marshall Plan. He started Anderson, Clayton and Company, a cotton marketing firm based in Houston, Texas, which became the world's largest cotton-trading enterprise. He entered government service in World War I as a member of the Cotton Distribution Committee. President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him first Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, a post that allowed him to promote the free trade policies that he believed in. He strongly supported American economic aid to rebuild Europe after World War II and had a major role in shaping the Marshall Plan. When he was in his eighties, he was asked by President Kennedy to work on the national export expansion program and the limited nuclear test ban treaty. His former home in Houston is now the Clayton Library, a major center for genealogical research.