Frank Kowalski

Frank Kowalski (October 18, 1907 – October 11, 1974) was a United States Representative from Connecticut. He was born in Bristol, Connecticut and he attended grade and high school in nearby Meridan. He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1930, attained a master of science in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1937, and studied international relations at Columbia University in 1945 and 1946. He married Helen Amelia Bober, October 20, 1931.

Before he completed the 11th grade of high school, Kowalski in 1925 joined the United States Army as an enlisted man. He earned an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point based on his performance on competitive examinations afforded to enlisted applicants in 1926 and graduated in 1930. He served in the Army continuously 1925-1958, with service in the European Theater during World War II. He was commissioned a Second Lieutenant, Infantry, in 1930 and advanced through the grades to Colonel, 1944. During World War II, Kowalski served on General Dwight D. Eisenhower's staff of the European Theater of Operations in the G-3 Division for Civil Affairs and Operations. When the war in Europe ended, he became the director of the disarmament of Germany in 1944. After World War II, he was the Chief Military Governor of Kyoto, Japan and of Chukoju Prefecture in which Hiroshima was located, 1948-49. When the Korean War started in 1950, Kowalski was assigned as the Chief of Staff of the Military Advisory Assistance Group in Tokyo. He helped build the Japanese Police Reserve, a military force of over 75,000 troops to defend the Islands of Japan, established despite the American-drafted Japanese Constitution prohibiting a military. In 1954, Kowalski organized and was the first Commandant of the United States Army Command Management School at Fort Belvoir, Virginia and served until his retirement from the service as a Colonel July 31, 1958. During his military career he received the Legion of Merit with oak leaf cluster, the Bronze Star. After leaving military service, he was the author of many articles on military management. He was the holder of patents for military weaponry and an early member of the once fledgling American Rocket Society.

Kowalski was elected as a Democrat to the Eighty-sixth and Eighty-seventh Congresses (January 3, 1959 – January 3, 1963), as Connecticut's Congressman-at-large, representing the entire state) before Baker v. Carr, the United States Supreme Court ruling instructing one man/one vote. Despite a military career, he maintain an extremely liberal voting record and on the Armed Services Committee was often critical of mismanagement and misuse of military personnel. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1962 to the Eighty-eighth Congress, even though he garnered more votes than any Connecticut statewide office holder in the 1960 election. Rather, he was unsuccessful in a bid -- before the primary system replace the oligarchic political party convention -- to become the candidate for the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate. An additional year service at a Presidential appointment level was required to qualify him for a Congressional pension. He reluctantly accepted service as a member of the Subversive Activities Control Board SACB from 1963 to 1966. In part due to Kowalski's votes on issues, the SACB was made ineffective and abolished in 1968. He died in Washington, D.C. in 1974 and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.