D. C. Sharp, 82; Ex-Secretary of U.S. Air Force

Dudley C. Sharp, secretary of the Air Force in the Eisenhower Administration and a well-known Texas political and civic leader, has died.

Geo. H. Lewis & Sons Funeral Home said Sharp died Sunday of cancer. He was 82.

Sharp went to Washington in 1955 as an assistant Air Force secretary at the beginning of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Administration but returned in 1959 to his Mission Manufacturing Co. after some business reverses. The firm manufactures petroleum industry equipment.

He returned to the capital that same year as undersecretary of the Air Force and succeeded James H. Douglas as Air Force secretary when Douglas was appointed deputy defense secretary.

Sharp returned to Houston when Eisenhower’s Administration ended in 1961.

During his tenure he supported Eisenhower in the President’s battle to limit government spending on missiles and bombers but became embattled over an Air Force training manual that reportedly linked churches with communism. He appeared before two congressional committees and promised to henceforth review all manuals before they were published.

Back in Houston, Sharp became chairman of the local Republican Party, a prime fund-raiser for Houston’s Alley Theater and was involved in many other civic pursuits. Sharp’s father was a prime financial backer of Howard Hughes Sr.’s Texas tool company, the firm that gave Howard Hughes Jr. the wherewithal to launch his aircraft manufacturing empire.