Nicholas Katzenbach
Nicholas deBelleville Katzenbach (January 17, 1922 – May 8, 2012) was an American lawyer who served as United States Attorney General during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration. He previously served as United States Deputy Attorney General under President John F. Kennedy.
Nick Katzenbach | |
|---|---|
Katzenbach in 1968 | |
| 24th United States Under Secretary of State | |
| In office November 28, 1966 – January 20, 1969 | |
| President | Lyndon B. Johnson |
| Preceded by | George Ball |
| Succeeded by | Elliot Richardson |
| 65th United States Attorney General | |
| In office September 4, 1964 – November 28, 1966 Acting: September 4, 1964 – February 11, 1965 | |
| President | Lyndon B. Johnson |
| Deputy | Ramsey Clark |
| Preceded by | Robert Kennedy |
| Succeeded by | Ramsey Clark |
| 7th United States Deputy Attorney General | |
| In office April 16, 1962 – January 28, 1965 | |
| President | John F. Kennedy Lyndon B. Johnson |
| Preceded by | Byron White |
| Succeeded by | Ramsey Clark |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Nicholas deBelleville Katzenbach January 17, 1922 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | May 8, 2012 (aged 90) Skillman, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse | Lydia King Phelps Stokes |
| Children | 4, including John |
| Relatives | Edward L. Katzenbach (father) Marie Hilson (mother) |
| Education | Princeton University (AB) Yale University (LLB) Balliol College, Oxford |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | United States |
| Branch/service | United States Army |
| Unit | U.S. Army Air Forces • Eighth Air Force |
| Battles/wars | World War II |
Early life and education
Katzenbach was born in Philadelphia and raised in Trenton. His parents were Edward L. Katzenbach, who served as Attorney General of New Jersey, and Marie Hilson Katzenbach, who was the first female president of the New Jersey State Board of Education. His uncle, Frank S. Katzenbach, served as Mayor of Trenton, New Jersey and as a Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court.
He was named after his mother's great-great-grandfather, Nicolas de Belleville (1753–1831), a French medical doctor who accompanied Kazimierz Pułaski to America and settled in Trenton in 1778.[1][2] Katzenbach was raised an Episcopalian,[3][4] and was partly of German descent.[5]
He attended Phillips Exeter Academy and was accepted into Princeton University. Katzenbach was a junior at Princeton in 1941, enlisting right after Pearl Harbor, and served in the United States Army Air Corps in World War II. Assigned as a navigator in the 381st Bomb Squadron, 310th Bomb Group in North Africa. His B-25 Mitchell Bomber was shot down February 23, 1943, over the Mediterranean Sea off North Africa. He spent over two years as a prisoner of war in Italian and German POW camps, including Stalag Luft III, the site of the "Great Escape", which Katzenbach assisted in. He read extensively as a prisoner, and ran an informal class based on Principles of Common Law.[6][7][8]
He received his A.B. cum laude from Princeton University in 1945 (partly based on Princeton giving him credit for the 500-odd books he had read in captivity).[6] As part of his degree, Katzenbach completed a senior thesis titled The Little Steel Formula: An Historical Appraisal.[9] He received an LL.B. cum laude from Yale Law School in 1947, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal.[10] From 1947 to 1949, he was a Rhodes Scholar at Balliol College, Oxford.
On June 8, 1946, Katzenbach married Lydia King Phelps Stokes, in a ceremony officiated by her uncle, Anson Phelps Stokes, former canon of the Washington National Cathedral. Her father was Harold Phelps Stokes, a newspaper correspondent and secretary to Herbert Hoover.[11]
Katzenbach was admitted to the New Jersey bar in 1950 and the Connecticut bar in 1955. He was an associate in the law firm of Katzenbach, Gildea and Rudner in 1950.
Government service
From 1950 to 1952, he was attorney-advisor in the Office of General Counsel to the Secretary of the Air Force. Katzenbach was on the faculty of Rutgers Law School from 1950 to 1951; was an associate professor of law at Yale from 1952 to 1956; and was a professor of law at the University of Chicago from 1956 to 1960.
He served in the U.S. Department of Justice as Assistant Attorney General of the Office of Legal Counsel in 1961–1962 and as Deputy Attorney General appointed by President John F. Kennedy in 1962. After the assassination of President Kennedy, Katzenbach continued to serve with the Johnson administration. On February 11, 1965 President Johnson appointed Katzenbach the 65th Attorney General of the United States, and he held the office until October 2, 1966. He then served as Under Secretary of State from 1966 to 1969. While Under Secretary of State, he commented on the 1967 USS Liberty incident: “There was nobody I think who did not believe that the Israelis knew it was an American ship that they were attacking.”[12]
In September 2008, Katzenbach published Some of It Was Fun: Working with RFK and LBJ (W. W. Norton), a memoir of his years in Government service.
The "Stand in the Schoolhouse Door"
On June 11, 1963, Katzenbach was a primary participant in one of the most famous incidents of the Civil Rights struggle.[13] Alabama Governor George Wallace stood in front of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama in an attempt to stop desegregation of that institution by the enrollment of two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood. This became known as the "Stand in the Schoolhouse Door". Hours later, Wallace stood aside only after being ordered to do so by Alabama National Guard General Henry V. Graham.[14]
Role in JFK assassination investigation
Katzenbach has been credited with providing advice after the assassination of John F. Kennedy that led to the creation of the Warren Commission.[15] On November 25, 1963, he sent a memo to Johnson's White House aide Bill Moyers recommending the creation of a Presidential Commission to investigate the assassination.[15][16] To combat speculation of a conspiracy, Katzenbach said the results of the FBI's investigation should be made public.[15][16] He wrote, in part: "The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates who are still at large".[16]
Four days after Katzenbach's memo, Johnson appointed some of the nation's most prominent figures, including the Chief Justice of the United States, to the Commission.[15][16] Conspiracy theorists later called the memo, one of thousands of files released by the National Archives in 1994, the first sign of a cover-up by the government.[15][16]
Later years
Katzenbach left government service to work for IBM in 1969, where he served as general counsel during the lengthy antitrust case filed by the Department of Justice seeking the break-up of IBM. He and Cravath, Swaine & Moore attorney Thomas Barr led the case for the computer giant for 13 years until the government finally decided to drop it in 1982. Later Katzenbach led the opposition against the case filed by the European Economic Community.
He retired from IBM in 1986 and became a partner at the firm of Riker, Danzig, Scherer, Hyland & Perretti in New Jersey.[17] He was named chairman of the failing Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) in 1991.[18]
In 1980, Katzenbach testified in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia for the defense of W. Mark Felt, later revealed to be the "Deep Throat" of the Watergate scandal and later Deputy Director of the FBI; accused and later found guilty of ordering illegal wiretaps on American citizens.
In December 1996, Katzenbach was one of New Jersey's fifteen members of the Electoral College, who cast their votes for the Clinton/Gore ticket.[19]
Katzenbach also testified on behalf of President Clinton on December 8, 1998, before the House Judiciary Committee hearing, considering whether to impeach President Clinton.[20]
On March 16, 2004, MCI Communications in a press release[permanent dead link] announced "its Board of Directors has elected former U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach as non-executive Chairman of the Board, effective upon MCI's emergence from Chapter 11 protection. Katzenbach has been an MCI Board member since July 2002." MCI later merged with Verizon.
Katzenbach was a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences[21] and the American Philosophical Society.[22]
Katzenbach and his wife Lydia retired to Princeton, New Jersey, with a summer home on Martha's Vineyard in West Tisbury, Massachusetts.[23] His son is writer John Katzenbach. His daughter, Maria, is also a published novelist.[24]
After the death of W. Willard Wirtz in April 2010, Katzenbach became the longest surviving former U.S. Cabinet member. Katzenbach died on May 8, 2012, at the age of 90.
See also
- Some of It Was Fun: Working with RFK and LBJ (W. W. Norton) – publisher web site
- Video: (bigthink.com)
- Video: Nicholas Katzenbach on RFK and LBJ[permanent dead link] (bigthink.com)
- Video: Nicholas Katzenbach compares Vietnam and Iraq[permanent dead link] (bigthink.com)
- The Best and the Brightest
- Katzenbach appears in archival footage of his confrontation with Gov. Wallace in the movie Forrest Gump
References
- ^ Lineage Book, National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Volume XXXV (1901).
- ^ "Trenton Old & New" 2008-06-29 at the Wayback Machine, Trenton Historical Society. Accessed June 27, 2008.
- ^ "Current Biography Yearbook". H. W. Wilson Company. 21 October 1966. Retrieved 21 October 2017 – via Google Books.
- ^ "Background on Nicholas Katzenbach – Video". Retrieved 21 October 2017.
- ^ "New Attorney General; Nicholas deBelleville Katzenbach". The New York Times. 21 October 1965. Retrieved 21 October 2017.
- ^ a b Purdum, Tom (February 6, 2013). "Lives: Nicholas deB. Katzenbach '43". The Princeton Alumni Weekly.
- ^ Coppola, Vincent (2008). The Sicilian Judge: Anthony Alaimo, an American Hero. Mercer University Press. pp. 67–8. ISBN 9780881461251.
- ^ Letter from Katzenbach at TPM Cafe 2009 March 24, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Katzenbach, Nicholas de Belleville. Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs (ed.). "The Little Steel Formula - An Historical Appraisal".
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4682&context=ylj
- ^ "Nuptials are Held for Lydia Stokes", The New York Times, June 9, 1947. Accessed June 27, 2008.
- ^ Scott, James (2 June 2009). The Attack on the Liberty: The Untold Story of Israel's Deadly 1967 Assault on a U.S. Spy Ship. ISBN 9781416554820.
- ^ Andrew Cohen (May 9, 2012). "Nicholas Katzenbach, Unsung Hero of America's Desegregation". Theatlantic.com.
- ^ "Alabama segregation date approaches". USA Today. 2003-06-08. Retrieved 2007-11-23.
- ^ a b c d e Savage, David G. (May 10, 2012). "Nicholas Katzenbach dies at 90; attorney general under Johnson". Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles. Retrieved December 12, 2014.
- ^ a b c d e "Nicholas Katzenbach, JFK and LBJ aide, dead at 90". Politico. AP. May 9, 2012. Retrieved December 12, 2014.
- ^ . Archived from the original on 4 July 2008. Retrieved 21 October 2017.
- ^ See Katzenbach, Nicholas (de Belleville) in John S. Bowman, ed., The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography (Cambridge, England: The Cambridge University Press, 1995).
- ^ 1996 Electoral College Votes, accessed December 21, 2006
- ^ "Transcript: Statement of former Attorney General Katzenbach – December 8, 1998". www.cnn.com. Retrieved 21 October 2017.
- ^ "Nicholas DeBelleville Katzenbach". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 2022-03-28.
- ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2022-03-28.
- ^ "Land Bank adds beach, pasture" 2008-10-07 at the Wayback Machine, Martha's Vineyard Times, March 29, 2007. Accessed June 28, 2008.
- ^ "Interview with Maria Katzenbach". Washington Post. January 15, 1978. Retrieved 2020-03-03.
Bibliography
- Katzenbach, Nicholas (2008). Some of It Was Fun: Working with RFK and LBJ. New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-06725-5.
External links
- Artículo en español del diario "El País", 26 de mayo de 2012, "Nicholas Katzenbach, crucial político en la sombra"
- Appearances on C-SPAN
- “Eyes on the Prize; Interview with Nicholas deB. Katzenbach; Interview with Nicholas Katzenbach,” 1985-12-10, American Archive of Public Broadcasting