CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER THE LTV CORPORATION DALLAS TEXAS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86M00886R001800060007-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 3, 2008
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: August 26, 1982
• Content Type: REPORT

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? .y ~? q..lai at*S,V ISJN~ VIISVl Y.AVrYVf ~V VA L.. :?
HF~i' THE LTV CORPORATION
Dallas, Texas .
I'aul Thayer, chairman and chief executive, officer of The LTV
Corporation, has built two succesi-ful careers on aviation.
(First, he was a fighter pilot with the U.S. Navy during World
War III. By the end of the war, when he was 25, he was a combat ace
wit? one of the finest flying records in the Navy. Afterward, in
pealetime, he was a test pilot for experimental planes, becoming one
of a first pilots to break the sound barrier and to t+.se the
ejection seat.
Than he began--selling the planes he flew and four years later,
in 1955; he was elected as both a vice president and member of the
bas of directors of the Chance Vought Corporation, which had built
the legendary FJ3U Corsair that he had flown in the Navy. That
.. Fya.
elecition sent his on course for a second career in corporate
buss ess and finance. -
July, 1970, he was sleeted to his present position at LTV,
givi}g him leadership of one of the country's biggest corporations.
Although based in Dallas, Texas, LTV operates nationally and
int tionally in four major industries ?.? steel, energy products
and services, .serospace/defens*, and ocean shipping y through its
sube;idiariesa Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation, Continental Emeco
, Yought Corporation and Lyksa Bros. Steamship Co., Inc.
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STAT
L,,,2 73
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Born November 23, 1919, in Henryetta, Oklahoma, where his
4I"1
T.i
tc
Father was an oil field drilling contractor, Thayer later lived in
Wichita, Kansas, where he attended high-school and began college
~t Wichita State University. After his freshman year, he took a
rear off to work as an oil field roughneck, than returned to
chool at the University of Kansas where he also enrolled in the
ivilian Pilot Training Program.
In 1941, prior to Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the Navy's
Aviation Cadet Program. He received his wings and ensign's
-omission in March, 1942, and subsequently was assigned to Naval
ighter Squadron VF-26 with which he participated in the Allied
invasion of Africa in November, 1942.
I The following year he was with the squadron in the South
Pacific aboard the aircraft carrier, USS Chenago. From its decks
he flew advance sorties and cover for various U.S. military
perations in the Pacific theater, and later the squadron was
land-based first on Guadalcanal Island, thew in the Russell
Islands after they had been taken from the Japanese.
In 1944, Thayer's squadron flew from the carrier USS
Suwanee and took part in the invasions of New Guinea and the
Philippine Islands. In one major battle off the Philippine coast,
(Thayer and five others in fighter aircraft were credited with
ioinking a Japanese destroyer while at the same time, behind them,
their own carrier was heavily damaged by kamikaze and torpedo
attacks but continued to operate.
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Ater the battle of the Philippines, Thaycr's fighter
aqu ron returned to the United States, and he was transferred to
F titer-bomber Squadron YBF-98 to serve as an advanced combat
inatruotor until the end of the war.
When he resigned his active duty commission with the rank of
lielutenant commander in September, 1945, Thayer'" tally record as a
fighter pilot showed six enemy planes shot down, four other probable
kills and nine more destroyed on the ground. He wore the
Diaitinguished Flying Cross with two gold stars, the Air Medal with
nine gold stare, and two Presidential Unit Citations were awarded
hiei fighter squadron.
For the first two years after the war, Thayer flew as a
co-)ilot for Trans World Airlines. And on Valentine's Day, February
14,
1947, he married a TWA stewardess, Margery Schwartz: The
owing year he began what subsequently developed into his career
in TV. -
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as a production
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tee't pilot, being promoted a year later to chief experimental test
pil t and working with the F6U Pirate and the F7U Cutlass, the
lat er a twin-engine swept-wing fighter in which Thayer broke the
sou barrier.
In 1950, Thayer left Chance Vaught to join Northrop Aircraft
as hief of experimental flight test, test-flying primarily the F-89
Sco ion, a twin-jet fighter being developed for the Air Force.
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The Following year, however, he returned to Chance Vought to
broe4en his career in aviation. He was not only chief of Chance
Vougt's flight test department, but also the
company o manager
for sales and service.
In 1955, Thayer moved into the ranks of corporate
exec~tive with his election as vioe president for sales and
service and also to the boatel of directors of Chance yought. In
1958, he began a year-long assignment directing the company's
offic and foreign sales operations in Washington, D.C. When he
retur ed to Dallas in 1959, he assumed the position of vice
president and.general manager of Chance Vought's Aeronautics
Division.
In 1961, when a diversified electronics company in Dallas
mere with Chance Vought to become Ling_Temoo..Vought, Inc.,
Thaye became president of Chance Vought and a director of ,y.
Four years later, when-the company was reorganized, Thayer was
named resident of LTV Aerospace Corporation, the Successor of
Chance Vought.
I During the five years Thayer was in charge of LTV
Aeros e, from Its inception in 1965 as an LTV subsidiary until
"hie e7' ction 'as chairman of LTV in 1970 t ?. .
he aviation company's
sales raw fourfold from $195 million to $80U m32210n annually.
When Thayer was elected to succeed LTV's founder and
chairman, James J. Ling, in 1970, the company was in the Midst of
a maio financial crisis. Within two years, however, Thayer
brought the company's operations back into the black and, by 1974,
LTV was reporting record sales and earnings. During that time,
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TrIfiy~r directed another reorgitnization of the company that left
1.TV ~s the operating parent of its subsidiaries and restored the
name) of Vought to its aerospace unit. In 1978, he directed LTV's
:nerg~r with the Ly ea Corporation of ?iew Orleans that added
You etown Sheet and Tube to LTV's steel operations and also
expanded the company's business into ocean shipping and oil field
aUpP y?
Thayer's accomplishments in both aviation and business
haver been widely re~oognized, and he himself is active in civic and
buss see organizations.*
In May 1982, he received the diatingutahed Horatio Alger
Award which honors Americans who have risen to positions of
leadership in business and who have promoted the American way of
free enterprise.
In 1979, he received the Robert M. Thompson Navy League
Awa for outstanding civilian leadership, and was awards the
Univ rsity of Kansas Distinguished Service Citation for
outs ding achievements and service-to mankind.-
In 1968, he was awarded the J.H. Doolittle Award by the
Soci~ty of Experimental Teat Pilots for excellence in technical
went of aerospace technology. He also has received the
Kitt Hawk-Award, presented by the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce
in cI ommemaration of the historic flight of the Wright brothers,
for his "outstanding contributions in the field of aviation," and
in 1 80 was presented the City of'Hope'a Aerospace Man of the Year
Rase rch Fellowship Award. In April 1981, he was awarded an
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of (west Virginia.
In recognition of his active interest and leaderehip.ir
the Boy Scout" of America, he was preesnted in 1978 with the
So to' Silver Antelope and William H. Spurgeon III awar33.
At the national level, he is currently Chairman of the
Cho ber of Commerce of the United States, and was the 1981-82
National Exploring Chairman of the Boy Scouts of America. In
addl tion, he serves on the board of the Business Roundtable.
In 977, he also was general chairman of the United Nations
Association of the United States.
He also serves on the Dallas Citizens Council; the board
of irectors of the Dallas Counoil of World Affairs; the board of
tru tees of the Greater Dallas/Fort Worth Chapter of the Leukemia
Soc ety of America, Inc . ; and the bosrd of governors for 3un3 or
Achievement. He is past co-chairman of Thanksgiving Square
Development in Dallas. He is a direotor of the Mercantile Texas
Corporation, Alteo Corporation, Allied Corporation and
~user.Busoh Companies, Inc.
In addition, he is a fellow in the Society of Experimental
Tee Pilots, a member of the National Advisory Council of -the Navy
League,, and chairman of the National Corporate Advisory Board of
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. if also is a life member of
the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity.
The Thayer" have a daughter, Brynn, who resides in New
York where she is a model and television actress.
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