William Henry Draper Jr. (August 10, 1894 – December 26, 1974) was an American army officer, banker, government official, and diplomat.

[2] At the invitation of George Marshall, he moved to Washington, D.C., to serve on the President's Advisory Committee for Selective Service, and he was promoted to colonel in 1940.

[3] At the end of the war, he was promoted to brigadier-general and was posted to Berlin to serve as chief of the Economics Division, Allied Control Council for Germany from 1945 to 1947.

He opposed the Morgenthau Plan, which was designed to prevent a resurgence of German economic and military power by deindustrializing it and turning into a pastoral country.

Instead, he strongly supported measures to expedite Germany's economic recovery along liberal free-market and democratic lines followed by Konrad Adenauer and Ludwig Erhard.

There was some criticism of him by the Chief of the Decartelization Branch for Military Government in Germany after World War II, James Stewart Martin for leaving some former Nazis in their positions in industry, in particular Alexander Kreuter.

[2] On August 7, 1948, Draper, then Undersecretary of War, requested that William L. Marbury Jr. fly to Geneva, Switzerland, and spend a month there to help the U.S. negotiate the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

[6][7] After retiring from public service a second time, he traveled to Mexico City to serve as chairman of the Mexican Light and Power Company.