Nick Katzenbach
Katzenbach in 1962
24th United States Under Secretary of State
In office
November 28, 1966 – January 20, 1969
PresidentLyndon B. Johnson
Preceded byGeorge Ball
Succeeded byElliot Richardson
65th United States Attorney General
In office
September 4, 1964 – November 28, 1966
Acting: September 4, 1964 – February 11, 1965
PresidentLyndon B. Johnson
DeputyRamsey Clark
Preceded byRobert Kennedy
Succeeded byRamsey Clark
7th United States Deputy Attorney General
In office
April 16, 1962 – January 28, 1965
PresidentJohn F. Kennedy
Lyndon B. Johnson
Preceded byByron White
Succeeded byRamsey Clark
Personal details
Born
Nicholas deBelleville Katzenbach

(1922-01-17)January 17, 1922
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
DiedMay 8, 2012(2012-05-08) (aged 90)
Skillman, New Jersey, U.S.
Political partyDemocratic
SpouseLydia King Phelps Stokes
Children4, including John
RelativesEdward L. Katzenbach (father)
Marie Hilson (mother)
EducationPrinceton University (AB)
Yale University (LLB)
Balliol College, Oxford
Military service
AllegianceUnited States
Branch/serviceUnited States Army
Unit
Battles/warsWorld War II

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.

Early life and education

Katzenbach was born in Philadelphia and raised in Trenton, New Jersey. 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"

Alabama Governor George Wallace (in front of door) standing defiantly against desegregation while being confronted by Deputy U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach (standing opposite Wallace) at the University of Alabama.

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 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 the Princeton, New Jersey area, 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 oldest surviving former U.S. Cabinet member. Katzenbach died at his home in the Skillman section of Montgomery Township, New Jersey, on May 8, 2012, at the age of 90.[25]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Lineage Book, National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Volume XXXV (1901).
  2. ↑ "Trenton Old & New" Archived June 29, 2008, at the Wayback Machine, Trenton Historical Society. Accessed June 27, 2008.
  3. ↑ "Current Biography Yearbook". H. W. Wilson Company. October 21, 1966. Retrieved October 21, 2017 – via Google Books.
  4. ↑ "Background on Nicholas Katzenbach – Video". June 27, 2013. Retrieved October 21, 2017.
  5. ↑ "New Attorney General; Nicholas deBelleville Katzenbach". The New York Times. October 21, 1965. Retrieved October 21, 2017.
  6. 1 2 Purdum, Tom (February 6, 2013). "Lives: Nicholas deB. Katzenbach '43". The Princeton Alumni Weekly.
  7. ↑ Coppola, Vincent (2008). The Sicilian Judge: Anthony Alaimo, an American Hero. Mercer University Press. pp. 67–8. ISBN 9780881461251.
  8. ↑ Letter from Katzenbach at TPM Cafe 2009 Archived March 24, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
  9. ↑ 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)
  10. ↑ "CIVIL AND CRIMINAL CONTEMPT IN THE FEDERAL COURTS". The Yale Law Journal. 57 (83). Retrieved September 15, 2023.
  11. ↑ "Nuptials are Held for Lydia Stokes", The New York Times, June 9, 1947. Accessed June 27, 2008.
  12. ↑ Scott, James (June 2, 2009). The Attack on the Liberty: The Untold Story of Israel's Deadly 1967 Assault on a U.S. Spy Ship. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9781416554820.
  13. ↑ Andrew Cohen (May 9, 2012). "Nicholas Katzenbach, Unsung Hero of America's Desegregation". Theatlantic.com.
  14. ↑ "Alabama segregation date approaches". USA Today. June 8, 2003. Retrieved November 23, 2007.
  15. 1 2 3 4 5 Savage, David G. (May 10, 2012). "Nicholas Katzenbach dies at 90; attorney general under Johnson". Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles. Retrieved December 12, 2014.
  16. 1 2 3 4 5 "Nicholas Katzenbach, JFK and LBJ aide, dead at 90". Politico. AP. May 9, 2012. Retrieved December 12, 2014.
  17. ↑ "Riker Danzig firm history". Archived from the original on July 4, 2008. Retrieved October 21, 2017.
  18. ↑ See Katzenbach, Nicholas (de Belleville) in John S. Bowman, ed., The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography (Cambridge, England: The Cambridge University Press, 1995).
  19. ↑ 1996 Electoral College Votes, accessed December 21, 2006
  20. ↑ "Transcript: Statement of former Attorney General Katzenbach – December 8, 1998". www.cnn.com. Retrieved October 21, 2017.
  21. ↑ "Nicholas DeBelleville Katzenbach". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved March 28, 2022.
  22. ↑ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved March 28, 2022.
  23. ↑ "Land Bank adds beach, pasture" Archived October 7, 2008, at the Wayback Machine, Martha's Vineyard Times, March 29, 2007. Accessed June 28, 2008.
  24. ↑ "Interview with Maria Katzenbach". Washington Post. January 15, 1978. Retrieved March 3, 2020.
  25. ↑ Martin, Douglas (May 10, 2012). "Nicholas Katzenbach, 90, Dies; Policy Maker at '60s Turning Points". The New York Times. p. B13. Retrieved June 21, 2023.

Bibliography

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