Fred Korth

Frederick Herman Korth (September 9, 1909 – September 14, 1998) served as the 56th U.S. Secretary of the Navy during 1962-63; he was also an Assistant Secretary of the Army in 1952-53.

Appointed as Navy Secretary by President John F. Kennedy on January 4, 1962, Korth resigned October, 1963. Various sources cite reasons for Secretary Korth's departure. He was president of the Continental National Bank of Fort Worth, Texas. Continental National Bank was a principal money source for the General Dynamics plant for the TFX (Tactical Fighter Experimental), which later emerged as the more well-known F-111 Aardvark. A commentary in the May, 1985 edition of Proceedings magazine exonerates Korth for any improprieties relating to the awarding of TFX.

Korth was born in September 1909 in Yorktown, Texas.

When he was not serving his country in the public sector and himself in the private sector in the above capacities, Fred Korth was a lawyer in the private sector. One of his more famous cases was a small case which occurred on June 24, 1948 in the County of Tarrant, Texas, when the Ekdahl Family are officially divorced. The mother of this family is Marguerite Frances Ekdahl, more famously known as the mother of Lee Harvey Oswald, while the father of this family, Edwin A. Ekdahl, was represented in the divorce proceedings by Fred Korth.

Frederick Herman Korth died in September 1998 in El Paso, Texas and was buried in October 1998 under a three century old Texas Live Oak tree on his ranch in Karnes County, Texas.