US Cabinet Secretary. He received recognition as the 56th Secretary of the United States Treasury, serving in President Dwight D. Eisenhower's cabinet after the 1957 resignation of George M. Humphrey, serving until January 20, 1961. Prior to accepting this position, he had served as Secretary of the Navy and Deputy Secretary of Defense in the Eisenhower administration. With a close-trusted relationship with Eisenhower, he had been on the short list of Vice-President candidates for the 1956 Eisenhower ballot and again, for Richard Nixon's ballot in 1960. Prior to graduating from the University of Texas Law School in 1932, he was a high school teacher. He became interested in Texas politics along with governmental, law and business activities. For nine months in 1933, he served as a member of the Texas House of Representatives from the 99th district. He served as the Assistant Attorney General for the State of Texas from 1933 to 1934, before becoming a State of Texas Tax Commissioner in 1934. In the private sector, he was a partner in owning a radio station. During World War II, he was an adviser to the Secretary of War. From February 4, 1953 to March 3, 1954, as Secretary of the Navy, he formally ended racial segregation in the Navy. May of 1954, he accepted the position of Deputy Secretary of Defense. He was awarded the Medal of Freedom in 1955. As the head of the Anderson Group, with the main office based in New York City, he returned to the private sector in 1961 with businesses in investments, banking affairs, oil, and real estate. Being a consultant or advisor for other businesses, he became active with businesses internationally, including the Near East, Eastern Europe, and Hong Kong. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy appointed Anderson to a special committee to study the United States foreign aid program. In 1964 he was appointed by President Lyndon Johnson as a special ambassador to Panama, working with matters involving the Panama Canal and the unrest in the local population, until his resignation in June of 1973. In the wake of the 1967 Six-Day War, he was sent by President Johnson to Cairo on diplomatic missions. During the next decade, his health began to decline. In 1987, he was sentenced to serve one month in prison and a five-month house arrest after pleading guilty in Federal District Court in Manhattan to the 1983 and 1984 tax evasion and being involved with an illegal branch in New York City of an offshore bank in the British West Indies. This bank was linked to money laundering from the sale of illegal drugs. Several investors loss thousands of dollars with his operations. With this conviction, he was disbarred in 1989. He married and the couple had two sons. During his sentencing, his wife died in May of 1987 after battling Alzheimer's Disease. After battling alcoholism with several hospitalizations over a decade, he died post-operative in 1989 from throat cancer. Although his middle name is "Bernerd," sources do spell his name as "Bernard." His professional papers dating prior to 1985 were donated by his son to the Eisenhower Library. His professional portrait was painted in 1960 by Nancy Lee Hersch.