Charles Schnabel Jr

CHARLIE SCHNABEL, served as Congressman Charlie Wilson’s chief of staff during the Soviet-Afghan War. He received a B.A. in Bacteriology and an M.A. in Public Administration from the University of Texas at Austin. After serving in the Texas Senate as Reading Clerk to the House for three years, Charlie was asked by then Lt. Governor Ben Ramsey to serve as Secretary of the Senate. What was supposed to be a temporary post became a 23-year career. Charlie served under Lt. Governors Ramsey, Preston Smith, Ben Barnes and Bill Hobby. After his career in the Senate, Schnabel worked for seven years as the Executive Assistant Commissioner of the Texas Rehabilitation Commission. In 1985, he received a phone call from Congressman Wilson offering him a job as his chief of staff. After several refusals, he finally accepted – not knowing that within a year he would be in the middle of covert operations in Afghanistan. Schnabel made many trips to the war zone along the Afghan-Pakistan border to fight with the mujahideen. In Chapter 25 of Crile’s book, you can learn about Schnabel’s part in what is now known as Charlie Wilson’s War.