High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! General Samuel Cochran Phillips was a United States Air Force four star general who served as Commander, Air Force Systems Command from 1973 to 1975, and as the seventh Director of the National Security Agency from 1972 to 1973. Phillips was born in Springerville, Arizona in 1921. He graduated from public schools in Cheyenne, Wyoming, earned a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Wyoming in 1942, and a master's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan in 1950.