Charles Abraham Halleck (August 22, 1900 – March 3, 1986) was an American politician. He was the Republican leader of the United States House of Representatives from the second district of Indiana. Early life and education Halleck was born near DeMotte, in Jasper County, Indiana, the son of Abraham and Lura (née Luce) Halleck. He served in the infantry of the United States Army in World War I. After military service, Halleck attended Indiana University at Bloomington. In 1924, Halleck was admitted to the bar and began practicing in Rensselaer, Indiana. From 1924 to 1934, he was the prosecuting attorney for the 13th district court. Career In 1935, Halleck was elected to fill the House vacancy created by the death of Congressman-elect Frederick Landis, and remained in that position until 1969. A prominent member of the conservative coalition, he served as the House Majority Leader after the elections of 1946 and 1952. He was House Minority Leader from 1959 to 1964. As Minority Leader he was in charge of House Republicans Halleck noted that a highlight of his career came at the 1940 Republican National Convention, when he nominated another person from Indiana, Wendell Willkie. Noting the mixed reception he got, Halleck said, "I got more brickbats and more bouquets over that speech than any other I've ever made." In 1944, even before Thomas Dewey was named as the Republican presidential nominee, Halleck, as the new chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, addressed a party gathering in Chicago. He rejected the Democratic "don't-change-horses-while-crossing-the-stream" mantra and declared that a Republican president would retain George C. Marshall, Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, and William F. Halsey in their military positions. He attacked what he called the New Deal "snooping into our ice boxes," a reference to the Office of Price Administration and rationing. Halleck said that Americans should "live again as God meant us to live and not as some bureaucrat in Washington... would like us to live." According to Halleck, he was rumored to be Thomas Dewey's vice-presidential nominee in Dewey's second general election campaign in 1948 if Halleck guaranteed the support of the Indiana delegation at the 1948 Republican National Convention. In the end, Dewey selected the governor of California, Earl Warren. The Dewey-Warren ticket surprisingly narrowly lost that November, to the Democratic Truman-Barkley ticket. In 1959, with the declining popularity of Eisenhower enabling Democrats to maintain their hold on