Chester E. Holifield

Chester E. Holifield, US Representative from California, 1970

The Chet Holifield Federal Building

Chester Earl "Chet" Holifield (December 3, 1903 – February 6, 1995) was a United States Representative from California. He was born in Mayfield, Graves County, Kentucky. He moved with his family to Springdale, Arkansas in 1912. He attended the public schools and moved to Montebello, California in 1920 where he engaged in the manufacture and selling of men's apparel from 1920 to 1943. He was chair of the Los Angeles County Democratic Central committee of the 51st District from 1934 to 1938. He was chair of the California State Central committee of the 12th congressional district from 1938 to 1940. He was also a delegate to each Democratic National Convention from 1940 to 1964.

Holifield was elected as a Democrat to the 78th and to the fifteen succeeding Congresses and served from January 3, 1943 until his resignation on December 31, 1974. He was not a candidate for reelection in 1974 to the 94th Congress.

Holifield resumed the manufacture and selling of men's apparel after leaving Congress. He died on February 6, 1995.

The Chet Holifield Federal Building in Laguna Niguel, California was renamed in his honor in 1978.

Chet Holified Library opened 1969 in Montebello, CA.^[1]

Nuclear

While in Congress, he was chair of the U.S. House Committee on Government Operations (91st through 93rd Congresses) and the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (87th, 89th, and 91st Congresses). He was member of the President's Special Evaluation Commission on Atomic Bomb Tests at Bikini Atoll, 1946. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, as a member of the House Military Operations Subcommittee, he was a strong advocate of fallout shelters and said that the United States should "build a nationwide system of underground shelters".^[2] Holifield was also a congressional adviser to international conferences on uses of atomic energy, nuclear weapons testing, water desalinization, and disarmament.

Alvin M. Weinberg, who advocated inherent safety in reactor design, recounted an incident from 1972, where Holifield stated: "if you are concerned about the safety of reactors, then I think it may be time for you to leave nuclear energy."^[3]

References

Bibliography

• Dyke, Richard Wayne. Mr. Atomic Energy: Congressman Chet Holifield and Atomic Energy Affairs from 1945 to 1974. New York: Greenwood Press, 1989; Dyke, Richard Wayne and Francis X. Gannon.
• Chet Holifield: Master Legislator and Nuclear Statesman. With a foreword by Gerald R. Ford and an afterword by Carl Albert. Lanham, [Md.]: University Press of America, 1996.

External links

• Chester E. Holifield at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• A film clip "Longines Chronoscope with Chester E. "Chet" Holifield is available for free download at the Internet Archive