Investment banker and public servant. Assistant Secretary of the United States Navy, 1941-1944; Under Secretary of the Navy, 1944-1945. Member of Interim Committee appointed by President Harry S. Truman to advise on use of the atomic bomb and on postwar uses of atomic energy. After joining in the committee's unanimous recommendation for immediate use of the bomb against a civilian target in Japan, Bard sent a memorandum to Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson urging that Japan receive two or three days' warning before the bomb was used. "The position of the United States as a great humanitarian nation and the fair play attitude of our people generally is responsible in the main for this feeling," Bard wrote. A 1906 graduate of Princeton University, Bard married Mary Hancock Spear in 1909. They had four children. Although Bard was a Republican, Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him to the Navy position on the recommendation of Navy Secretary Frank Knox. As Assistant Secretary, Bard was responsible for managing the Navy's civilian personnel. Under his oversight the Navy suffered no strikes or work stoppages during World War II. Bard was Acting Secretary of the Navy for three weeks following Knox's death in 1944. He chaired the Eversharp company after the war and was appointed by President Truman to the United Nations Commission for Conventional Armaments. Bard was active in Chicago-area civic affairs. He received the Navy's Distinguished Civilian Service Award in 1954.
Investment banker and public servant. Assistant Secretary of the United States Navy, 1941-1944; Under Secretary of the Navy, 1944-1945. Member of Interim Committee appointed by President Harry S. Truman to advise on use of the atomic bomb and on postwar uses of atomic energy. After joining in the committee's unanimous recommendation for immediate use of the bomb against a civilian target in Japan, Bard sent a memorandum to Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson urging that Japan receive two or three days' warning before the bomb was used. "The position of the United States as a great humanitarian nation and the fair play attitude of our people generally is responsible in the main for this feeling," Bard wrote. A 1906 graduate of Princeton University, Bard married Mary Hancock Spear in 1909. They had four children. Although Bard was a Republican, Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him to the Navy position on the recommendation of Navy Secretary Frank Knox. As Assistant Secretary, Bard was responsible for managing the Navy's civilian personnel. Under his oversight the Navy suffered no strikes or work stoppages during World War II. Bard was Acting Secretary of the Navy for three weeks following Knox's death in 1944. He chaired the Eversharp company after the war and was appointed by President Truman to the United Nations Commission for Conventional Armaments. Bard was active in Chicago-area civic affairs. He received the Navy's Distinguished Civilian Service Award in 1954.
Bio by: Michael Walter
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