James Jeremiah Wadsworth

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James Jeremiah Wadsworth

James Jeremiah Wadsworth (born June 12, 1905 in Groveland , Livingston County , New York ; died March 13, 1984 in Washington, DC ) was an American Republican politician . He was a member of the New York House of Representatives , Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations and a senior government official.

Family and education

James Wadsworth was the son of US Senator James Wolcott Wadsworth Jr. and Alice born. Hay, whose father, John Hay, was the United States Secretary of State from 1898 to 1905 . His grandfather and great-grandfather on his father's side already held high ranks in the military and politics. His sister Evelyn married the future US Senator Stuart Symington .

During his student days at Yale University , Wadsworth played football and baseball , where he graduated in 1927 with a bachelor's degree. He received law degrees from Alfred University , Bowdoin College, and Willmington College . He then worked on the family's farm and ran a farm that he had been given for his birthday.

On June 16, 1927, Wadsworth married Harty Griggs Tilton. His second marriage was to Mary Alphin Wadsworth. He had a daughter and two stepchildren.

Career in politics and administration

At the age of 26 he was elected to the New York State House of Representatives in 1931, the lower chamber of the State Legislature , and represented Livingston County there from 1932 . He became an expert on the problems created by the Great Depression and headed a commission devoted to the difficulties of unemployed men over 40. He remained active in agriculture. Always re-elected, he left in 1941. For health reasons, he was not drafted as a soldier in the Second World War and instead served in the civilian sector in national defense as a manager for a Curtiss-Wright factory in Buffalo until 1945 .

He subsequently became a high political official in the federal government . From 1945 he was director of the Department of Public Service of the War Assets Administration , 1946 to 1948 director of the Department of Government Affairs of the Air Transport Association . In 1948 he left the government and worked as personal assistant to Paul G. Hoffmans , who headed the Economic Cooperation Administration . From 1950 he worked in the civil defense authorities and was director of the Civil Defense Office and from 1951 deputy head of the Federal Civil Defense Administration , whose executive director he was from 1952. There he developed civil protection guidelines that became standards.

From 1953 to 1960 he was Deputy American Ambassador to the United Nations, Henry Cabot Lodge junior . As such, he was often responsible for problem solving in negotiations with the Soviet side and achieved a partial ban on nuclear weapons tests . When Cabot Lodge was chosen as Richard Nixon's running mate and vice-presidential candidate for the 1960 presidential election in 1960 and was used in the summer for the election campaign, Wadsworth was himself ambassador to the UN on September 8, 1960 for the remaining five months of the Eisenhower administration until January 21, 1961. Headquarters in New York. This time was marked by turbulence; The Soviet ruler Nikita Khrushchev demanded the withdrawal of the UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld and gave the famous speech in which, in order to emphasize his cause, he drummed on the lectern of the UN General Assembly with his shoe off . Wadsworth also publicly rejected Khrushchev's request.

In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him to the Federal Communications Commission , of which he was a member until 1970 and in which the New York Times characterized his work as that of an unpredictable maverick, as he was instrumental in it, some granted Television licenses cannot be renewed. He then joined the American delegation to negotiate a charter of the International Telecommunications Satellite Consortium ( Intelsat ).

Later activities

Wadsworth withdrew from the public and ran the 3000 acres extensive dairy farm in Geneseo near Rochester , which had belonged to the family since colonial times ; the Wadsworths founded the Geneseo settlement in 1790. In 1980 he published the autobiography The Silver Spoon , in which he himself targeted his privileged and wealthy origins.

Wadsworth was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the World Federalists . He was a member of the Episcopal Church . Shortly after serving as the UN Ambassador, he received an honorary doctorate from Bowdoin College. After his death in 1984 he was buried in Temple Hill Cemetery in Geneseo.

Fonts

literature

  • John T. Mason, Jr .: Reminiscences of James Jeremiah Wadsworth. Columbia University , Oral History: Eisenhower Administration Project, 1967, OCLC 122451794 .
  • David A. Male, Gerald V. Flannery: Wadsworth, James J. 1965-1969. In: Gerald V. Flannery (Ed.): Commissioners of the FCC, 1927-1994. University Press of America, Lanham, MD, New York, London 1995, ISBN 081919669X , pp. 138-140 (preview) .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Mrs. Stuart Symington Is Dead; Wife of Senator From Missouri. In: The New York Times , December 25, 1972.
  2. Joseph B. Treaster: James J. Wadsworth This at 78; Headed US Delegation to UN In: The New York Times , March 15, 1984
  3. David A. Male, Gerald V. Flannery: Wadsworth, James J. 1965-1969. In: Gerald V. Flannery (Ed.): Commissioners of the FCC, 1927-1994. University Press of America, Lanham, MD, New York, London 1995, pp. 138-140, here p. 138 .
  4. ^ US Ambassador to the United Nations. In: Notable Names Database .
  5. Joyce Rapp: Geneseo. In: Peter R. Eisenstadt (Ed.): The Encyclopedia of New York State. Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, NY 2005, p. 631 .
  6. James Jeremiah Wadsworth ( Memento August 2, 2010 in the Internet Archive ). In: Bowdoin.edu.
  7. James Jeremiah Wadsworth in the Find a Grave database . Retrieved October 8, 2018. . With picture.