Johnson, Hugh (Samuel) (1882–1942)

US army officer and government official. He became a brigadier general at the age of 35 (the youngest such since the US Civil War). He helped to draft the Selective Service Act in 1917. A member of Franklin Roosevelt's ‘brain trust’, he headed the National Recovery Administration 1933–34 but his autocratic manner offended virtually everyone he dealt with and he had to resign. As a newspaper columnist and radio commentator, he opposed Roosevelt over the ‘packing’ of the Supreme Court and the issue of a third term.

Born in Fort Scott, Kansas, he graduated from West Point in 1903 and held several posts including superintendent of Sequoia National Park. He earned a law degree in 1916 and served with Pershing in Mexico in 1916, retiring from the army in 1919. He worked for the financier Bernard Baruch 1927–33.