Frederick James Clarke (1 March 1915 – 4 February 2002) was a civil and military engineer with the United States Army Corps of Engineers. Clarke was one of three commissioners appointed to run the District of Columbia from 1960 to 1963. He rose to the rank of lieutenant General as the Chief of Engineers. A 1937 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, where he graduated fourth in his class, Clarke earned a Master of Science degree in civil engineering from Cornell University in 1940. During World War II he commanded an engineer battalion on Ascension Island in the South Atlantic, and he supervised the construction of a military airfield there that became a key refueling point for transatlantic flights to Africa. He then served on the staff of the Army Service Forces. After the war ended he was area engineer of the Manhattan Project's Hanford Engineer Works, and was executive officer of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project at Sandia Base. As district engineer of the Trans-East District of the Corps from 1957 to 1959, he was responsible for military construction in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. From 1960 to 1963 he was one of the three federally appointed commissioners that governed the District of Columbia and initiated the construction of the Washington Metro railway and subway system. As chairman of the District's zoning commission, he participated in early debates over the proposals to build a bridge near the near the Three Sisters Islands in the Potomac River. He was the Director of Military Construction in the Office of the Chief of Engineers from 1963 1965, the Commanding General of the Army Engineer Center and Commandant of the United States Army Engineer School at Fort Belvoir from 1965 to 1966, and Deputy Chief of Engineers from 1966 to 1969. As Chief of Engineers from 1969 to 1973 he guided the Corps as it devoted increased attention to the environmental impact of its work. Early life Clarke was born in Little Falls, New York on 1 March 1915. His father was a machine shop foreman at a local dairy equipment manufacturer. His mother died in the 1918 influenza pandemic. He had a sister. He was educated at a parochial elementary school and the local high school in Little Falls. Following his junior high school year he worked for Western Union during the summer, and after graduation