Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Arthur Meier Schlesinger, Jr. (October 15, 1917 - February 28, 2007) was an American historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

and social critic whose work explored the American liberalism of political leaders

Politics of the United States

The United States is a federal constitutional republic, in which the President of the United States , Congress, and judiciary share powers reserved to the national government, and the federal government shares sovereignty with the state governments.The executive branch is headed by the President...

including Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...

, John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....

, and Robert F. Kennedy

Robert F. Kennedy

Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy , also referred to by his initials RFK, was an American politician, a Democratic senator from New York, and a noted civil rights activist. An icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Kennedy family, he was a younger brother of President John F...

. A Pulitzer Prize

Pulitzer Prize

The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

winner, Schlesinger served as special assistant and "court historian" to President Kennedy from 1961 to 1963. He wrote a detailed account of the Kennedy Administration, from the transition period to the president's state funeral, titled A Thousand Days.

In 1968, Schlesinger actively supported the presidential campaign of Senator Robert F. Kennedy

Robert F. Kennedy

, which ended with Kennedy's assassination in Los Angeles. Schlesinger wrote the biography Robert Kennedy and His Times several years later.

He popularized the term "imperial presidency

Imperial Presidency

Imperial Presidency is a term that became popular in the 1960s and that served as the title of a 1973 volume by historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. to describe the modern presidency of the United States...

" during the Nixon

Richard Nixon

Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...

administration by writing the book The Imperial Presidency
The Imperial Presidency
The Imperial Presidency by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. was written in 1973.This book details the history of the Presidency of the United States from its conception by the Constitutional Founders, through the late twentieth century...

.
He also was an avid supporter of Harry Truman.

Early life and career

Schlesinger was born in Columbus, Ohio

Columbus, Ohio

Columbus is the capital of and the largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio. The broader metropolitan area encompasses several counties and is the third largest in Ohio behind those of Cleveland and Cincinnati. Columbus is the third largest city in the American Midwest, and the fifteenth largest city...

, the son of Elizabeth Harriet (née Bancroft) and Arthur M. Schlesinger

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr.

Arthur Meier Schlesinger, Sr. was an American historian. His son, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. was also a noted historian.-Life and career:...

(1888 – 1965), who was an influential social historian at Ohio State University

Ohio State University

The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...

and Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

. His paternal grandfather was a Prussian Jew (who later converted to the German Reformed Church) and his paternal grandmother an Austrian Catholic. His mother, a Mayflower descendant, was of German and New England ancestry, and a relative of historian George Bancroft

George Bancroft

George Bancroft was an American historian and statesman who was prominent in promoting secondary education both in his home state and at the national level. During his tenure as U.S. Secretary of the Navy, he established the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1845...

, according to "family tradition". His family practiced Unitarianism. Schlesinger attended the Phillips Exeter Academy

Phillips Exeter Academy

Phillips Exeter Academy is a private secondary school located in Exeter, New Hampshire, in the United States.Exeter is noted for its application of Harkness education, a system based on a conference format of teacher and student interaction, similar to the Socratic method of learning through asking...

in New Hampshire

New Hampshire

New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...

and received his first degree at the age of twenty from Harvard, where he would graduate summa cum laude. In 1940, at the age of twenty-three, he was appointed to a three-year fellowship at Harvard. His fellowship was interrupted by the United States' entry into World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. After failing his military medical examination Schlesinger joined the Office of War Information. From 1943-1945 he served in a spy ring operated by the Office of Strategic Services

Office of Strategic Services

The Office of Strategic Services was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime intelligence agency, and it was a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency...

, a precursor to the CIA;
In Garry Wills

Garry Wills

Garry Wills is a Pulitzer Prize-winning and prolific author, journalist, and historian, specializing in American politics, American political history and ideology and the Roman Catholic Church. Classically trained at a Jesuit high school and two universities, he is proficient in Greek and Latin...

's 1970 book, "Nixon Agonistes", he mentions Schlesinger's background in the OSS.
Schlesinger's full involvement was very openly and publicly discussed in the media in 2008, along with other well known personalities such as chef Julia Child

Julia Child

Julia Child was an American chef, author, and television personality. She is recognized for introducing French cuisine to the American public with her debut cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and her subsequent television programs, the most notable of which was The French Chef, which...

.

Schlesinger's service in the OSS allowed him time to complete his first Pulitzer prizewinning book, The Age of Jackson, in 1945. From 1946-1954 he was an Associate Professor at Harvard, becoming a full professor in 1954.

Political activities prior to 1960

In 1947 Schlesinger, together with former First Lady

First Lady of the United States

First Lady of the United States is the title of the hostess of the White House. Because this position is traditionally filled by the wife of the president of the United States, the title is most often applied to the wife of a sitting president. The current first lady is Michelle Obama.-Current:The...

Eleanor Roosevelt

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and became an advocate for civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt continued to be an international...

, Minneapolis mayor and future Senator

United States Senate

The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

and Vice President

Vice President of the United States

The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...

Hubert Humphrey

Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr. , served under President Lyndon B. Johnson as the 38th Vice President of the United States. Humphrey twice served as a United States Senator from Minnesota, and served as Democratic Majority Whip. He was a founder of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and...

and economist and longtime friend John Kenneth Galbraith

John Kenneth Galbraith

John Kenneth "Ken" Galbraith , OC was a Canadian-American economist. He was a Keynesian and an institutionalist, a leading proponent of 20th-century American liberalism...

founded Americans for Democratic Action

Americans for Democratic Action

Americans for Democratic Action is an American political organization advocating progressive policies. ADA works for social and economic justice through lobbying, grassroots organizing, research and supporting progressive candidates.-History:...

. Schlesinger acting as the ADA's national chairman from 1953-1954.

After President Harry S. Truman

Harry S. Truman

Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...

announced he would not run for a second full term in the 1952 presidential election

United States presidential election, 1952

The United States presidential election of 1952 took place in an era when Cold War tension between the United States and the Soviet Union was escalating rapidly. In the United States Senate, Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin had become a national figure after chairing congressional...

, Schlesinger became the primary speechwriter and ardent supporter of Governor

Governor of Illinois

The Governor of Illinois is the chief executive of the State of Illinois and the various agencies and departments over which the officer has jurisdiction, as prescribed in the state constitution. It is a directly elected position, votes being cast by popular suffrage of residents of the state....

Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

. In the 1956 election

United States presidential election, 1956

The United States presidential election of 1956 saw a popular Dwight D. Eisenhower successfully run for re-election. The 1956 election was a rematch of 1952, as Eisenhower's opponent in 1956 was Democrat Adlai Stevenson, whom Eisenhower had defeated four years earlier.Incumbent President Eisenhower...

, Schlesinger - along with 26-year-old Robert F. Kennedy - again worked on Stevenson's campaign staff. Schlesinger supported the nomination of John F. Kennedy, then a Senator from Massachusetts, as Stevenson's vice-presidential running mate

Running mate

A running mate is a person running together with another person on a joint ticket during an election. The term is most often used in reference to the person in the subordinate position but can also properly be used when referring to both candidates, such as "Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen were...

, but at the Democratic convention Kennedy came second in the vice-presidential balloting, losing to Senator Estes Kefauver

Estes Kefauver

Carey Estes Kefauver July 26, 1903 – August 10, 1963) was an American politician from Tennessee. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in the U.S...

of Tennessee

Tennessee

Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

.

Schlesinger had known John F. Kennedy since attending Harvard and increasingly socialized with Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Jacqueline Lee Bouvier "Jackie" Kennedy Onassis was the wife of the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, and served as First Lady of the United States during his presidency from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. Five years later she married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle...

in the 1950s. In 1954, the Boston Post
Boston Post
The Boston Post was the most popular daily newspaper in New England for over a hundred years before it folded in 1956. The Post was founded in November 1831 by two prominent Boston businessmen, Charles G...

publisher John Fox, Jr. had planned series of newspaper pieces labeling several Harvard figures, including Schlesinger, as "reds," Kennedy intervened on Schlesinger's behalf, which Schlesinger recounted in A Thousand Days.

During the 1960 campaign

Democratic Party (United States) presidential primaries, 1960

The 1960 Democratic presidential primaries were the selection process by which voters of the Democratic Party chose its nominee for President of the United States in the 1960 U.S. presidential election. Senator John F...

, Schlesinger supported Kennedy, causing much consternation to Stevenson loyalists. At the time, however, Kennedy was an active candidate while Stevenson refused to run unless he was drafted at the convention

1960 Democratic National Convention

The 1960 Democratic National Convention was held in Los Angeles. In the end, the Kennedy-Johnson ticket was assembled and went on to secure an electoral college victory and a narrow popular vote plurality in the fall over the Republican candidates Richard M...

. After Kennedy won the nomination, Schlesinger helped the campaign as a (sometime) speechwriter, speaker, and member of the ADA. He also wrote the book Kennedy or Nixon: Does It Make Any Difference? in which he lauded Kennedy's abilities and scorned Vice President Richard M. Nixon as having "no ideas, only methods...He cares about winning."

Kennedy Administration

After the election, the president-elect offered Schlesinger an ambassadorship and Assistant Secretary of State for Cultural Relations before Robert Kennedy proposed that he serve as a "sort of roving reporter and troubleshooter." Schlesinger quickly accepted, and on January 30, 1961 he resigned from Harvard and was appointed Special Assistant to the President. He worked primarily on Latin American Affairs and as a speechwriter during his tenure in the White House.
In February 1961, Schlesinger was first told of the "Cuba operation" that would eventually become the Bay of Pigs Invasion

Bay of Pigs Invasion

The Bay of Pigs Invasion was an unsuccessful action by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba, with support and encouragement from the US government, in an attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The invasion was launched in April 1961, less than three months...

. He opposed the plan in a memorandum to the President, stating that "at one stroke you would dissipate all the extraordinary good will which has been rising toward the new Administration through the world. It would fix a malevolent image of the new Administration in the minds of millions." During the Cabinet deliberations he "shrank into a chair at the far end of the table and listened in silence" as the Joint Chiefs and CIA representatives lobbied the president for an invasion. Along with his friend, Senator William Fulbright, Schlesinger sent several memos to the President opposing the strike; however, during the meetings he held back his opinion, reluctant to undermine the President's desire for a unanimous decision. Following the overt failure of the invasion, Schlesinger later lamented "In the months after the Bay of Pigs, I bitterly reproached myself for having kept so silent during those crucial discussions in the cabinet room . . . I can only explain my failure to do more than raise a few timid questions by reporting that one's impulse to blow the whistle on this nonsense was simply undone by the circumstances of the discussion." After the furor died down, Kennedy joked that Schlesinger "wrote me a memorandum that will look pretty good when he gets around to writing his book on my administration. Only he better not publish that memorandum while I'm still alive!" During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Schlesinger was not a member of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (EXCOMM

ExComm

The Executive Committee of the National Security Council was a body of United States government officials that convened to advise President John F. Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962...

) but helped UN Ambassador Stevenson draft his presentation of the crisis to the UN Security Council.

After President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963

John F. Kennedy assassination

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas...

, Schlesinger resigned his position in January 1964. He wrote a memoir/history of the Kennedy Administration called A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House, which won him his second Pulitzer Prize in 1965.

Later career

Schlesinger returned to teaching in 1966 as the Albert Schweitzer Professor of the Humanities at The Graduate Center of The City University of New York. He retired in 1994, but remained an active member of the Graduate Center community as an emeritus professor until his death. He continued to be a Kennedy loyalist for the rest of his life, campaigning for Robert Kennedy's tragic presidential campaign in 1968 and for Senator Edward M. Kennedy in 1980. Upon the request of Robert Kennedy's widow, Ethel Kennedy, he wrote the biography Robert Kennedy And His Times. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, he greatly criticized Richard Nixon as both a candidate and president. His outspoken disdain of Nixon and prominent status as a liberal Democrat led to his placement on the master list of Nixon's political opponents. Ironically, Nixon would become his next-door neighbor in the years following the Watergate scandal

Watergate scandal

The Watergate scandal was a political scandal during the 1970s in the United States resulting from the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement...

. He retired from teaching in 1994 but remained involved in politics for the rest of his life through his books and public speaking tours.

Personal life

Schlesinger's name at birth was Arthur Bancroft Schlesinger; his mother was Elizabeth Bancroft and the family has long assumed (without hard evidence) that there is a blood connection to America's first great historian George Bancroft

George Bancroft

. The ancestries of George

and Arthur imply they were both third and fourth cousins, five times removed. Since his mid-teens, he had instead used the signature Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (Schlesinger 2000, pp. 6–7 and 57)

He had five children, four from his first marriage to author Marian Cannon and a son and stepson from his second, to Alexandra Emmet. His son Stephen Schlesinger

Stephen Schlesinger

Stephen Schlesinger is an author and political commentator. He is an Adjunct Fellow at the Century Foundation in New York City. He served as Director of the World Policy Institute at the New School University from 1997-2006. He is the son of historian Arthur M...

is a social scientist, former director of the World Policy Institute

World Policy Institute

The World Policy Institute, a non-partisan policy institute which claims to develop policies that require a progressive ideology. WPI focuses on cooperative policies in order to achieve : an inclusive and sustainable global market economy, engaged global civic participation and effective...

at The New School University in New York City and contributor to the Huffington Post. His third son Robert Schlesinger

Robert Schlesinger

Robert Schlesinger is opinion editor at U.S. News and World Report, a liberal blogger on and the Huffington Post, and writes a biweekly column for U.S. News. He is the youngest son of the late historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and the youngest brother of Stephen Schlesinger. His first book,...

and stepson Peter Allan also write blogs on Huffington Post, as did Arthur Schlesinger himself.

As a prominent Democrat and historian, Schlesinger maintained a very active social life. His wide circle of friends and associates included politicians, actors, writers and artists spanning several decades. Among his friends and associates were President John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....

, Robert F. Kennedy

Robert F. Kennedy

, and Edward M. Kennedy

Ted Kennedy

Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. Serving almost 47 years, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died and is the fourth-longest-serving senator in United States history...

, Adlai E. Stevenson, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

, John Kenneth Galbraith

John Kenneth Galbraith

John Kenneth "Ken" Galbraith , OC was a Canadian-American economist. He was a Keynesian and an institutionalist, a leading proponent of 20th-century American liberalism...

, Averell and Pamela Harriman

Pamela Harriman

Pamela Beryl Harriman , also known as Pamela Churchill Harriman, was an English-born socialite who was married and linked to important and powerful men. In later life, she became a political activist for the United States Democratic Party and a diplomat...

, Steve

Stephen Edward Smith

Stephen Edward Smith was the husband of Jean Ann Kennedy. He was a financial analyst and political strategist in the 1960 United States Presidential campaign of his brother-in-law, John F. Kennedy.-Biography:...

and Jean Kennedy Smith

Jean Kennedy Smith

Jean Ann Kennedy Smith is an American diplomat and a former United States Ambassador to Ireland. She is the eighth of nine children born to Joseph Patrick Kennedy, Sr. and Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald and is their last surviving child. She is the sister of the 35th U.S. President, John F. Kennedy,...

, Ethel Kennedy, Ted Sorensen

Ted Sorensen

Theodore Chaikin "Ted" Sorensen was an American presidential advisor, lawyer and writer, best known as President John F. Kennedy’s special counsel, adviser and legendary speechwriter. President Kennedy once called him his “intellectual blood bank.”-Early life:Sorensen was born in Nebraska, the son...

, Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt

, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr. was an American politician. He was the fifth child of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Sr. and his wife Eleanor.-Personal life:...

, Alice Roosevelt Longworth

Alice Roosevelt Longworth

Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth was the oldest child of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States. She was the only child of Roosevelt and his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee....

, Hubert Humphrey

Hubert Humphrey

, Henry Kissinger

Henry Kissinger

Heinz Alfred "Henry" Kissinger is a German-born American academic, political scientist, diplomat, and businessman. He is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and...

, Marietta Peabody Tree

Marietta Peabody Tree

Marietta Peabody Tree was an American socialite and political supporter, who represented the United States on the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, appointed under the administration of John F...

, Ben Bradlee, Joseph Alsop

Joseph Alsop

Joseph Wright Alsop V was an American journalist and syndicated newspaper columnist from the 1930s through the 1970s.-Early years:...

, Evangeline Bruce, William vanden Heuvel

William vanden Heuvel

William Jacobus vanden Heuvel is an attorney, businessman and author, as well as a former diplomat.He is the father of Katrina vanden Heuvel, longtime editor of The Nation magazine, and Wendy vanden Heuvel, children from his marriage to author/editor Jean Stein, the well-to-do daughter of Jules C...

, Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a 20th century American writer. His works such as Cat's Cradle , Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions blend satire, gallows humor and science fiction. He was known for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association.-Early...

, Norman Mailer

Norman Mailer

Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...

, Philip and Katherine Graham, Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...

, Walter Lippmann

Walter Lippmann

Walter Lippmann was an American intellectual, writer, reporter, and political commentator famous for being among the first to introduce the concept of Cold War...

, President Lyndon Johnson, Nelson Rockefeller

Nelson Rockefeller

Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller was the 41st Vice President of the United States , serving under President Gerald Ford, and the 49th Governor of New York , as well as serving the Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower administrations in a variety of positions...

, Lauren Bacall

Lauren Bacall

Lauren Bacall is an American film and stage actress and model, known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks.She first emerged as leading lady in the Humphrey Bogart film To Have And Have Not and continued on in the film noir genre, with appearances in The Big Sleep and Dark Passage ,...

, Marlene Dietrich

Marlene Dietrich

Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...

, George McGovern

George McGovern

George Stanley McGovern is an historian, author, and former U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party nominee in the 1972 presidential election....

, Robert McNamara

Robert McNamara

Robert Strange McNamara was an American business executive and the eighth Secretary of Defense, serving under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 to 1968, during which time he played a large role in escalating the United States involvement in the Vietnam War...

, McGeorge Bundy

McGeorge Bundy

McGeorge "Mac" Bundy was United States National Security Advisor to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson from 1961 through 1966, and president of the Ford Foundation from 1966 through 1979...

, Jack Valenti

Jack Valenti

Jack Joseph Valenti was a long-time president of the Motion Picture Association of America. During his 38-year tenure in the MPAA, he created the MPAA film rating system, and he was generally regarded as one of the most influential pro-copyright lobbyists in the world...

, Bill Moyers

Bill Moyers

Bill Moyers is an American journalist and public commentator. He served as White House Press Secretary in the United States President Lyndon B. Johnson Administration from 1965 to 1967. He worked as a news commentator on television for ten years. Moyers has had an extensive involvement with public...

, Richard Goodwin

Richard Goodwin

Richard Goodwin may refer to:*Richard N. Goodwin , American writer and advisor to US Presidents Kennedy and Johnson*Richard M. Goodwin , American mathematician and economist*Richard Elton Goodwin , British Army General...

, Al Gore

Al Gore

Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....

, President Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

and Hillary Rodham Clinton

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is the 67th United States Secretary of State, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama. She was a United States Senator for New York from 2001 to 2009. As the wife of the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, she was the First Lady of the...

Education

1933 Phillips Exeter Academy
Phillips Exeter Academy
Phillips Exeter Academy is a private secondary school located in Exeter, New Hampshire, in the United States.Exeter is noted for its application of Harkness education, a system based on a conference format of teacher and student interaction, similar to the Socratic method of learning through asking...
1938 Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

- Society of Fellows, 1939–1942; he never received a Ph.D.
1938-39 Peterhouse, Cambridge
Peterhouse, Cambridge
Peterhouse is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. It is the oldest college of the University, having been founded in 1284 by Hugo de Balsham, Bishop of Ely...

- Henry Fellow

World War II service

1942–1943 Office of War Information
1943–1945 Office of Strategic Services
Office of Strategic Services
The Office of Strategic Services was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime intelligence agency, and it was a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency...

Educator

1946-1961 professor of history at Harvard
Elected to The American Academy of Arts and Letters
The American Academy of Arts and Letters
The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 250-member honor society; its goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Located in Washington Heights, a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan in New York, it shares Audubon Terrace, its Beaux Arts campus on...

in 1961.
1966 Albert Schweitzer Professor of Humanities at City University of New York
City University of New York
The City University of New York is the public university system of New York City, with its administrative offices in Yorkville in Manhattan. It is the largest urban university in the United States, consisting of 23 institutions: 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, the William E...

Graduate Center
CUNY Graduate Center
The Graduate Center of the City University of New York brings together graduate education, advanced research, and public programming to midtown Manhattan hosting 4,600 students, 33 doctoral programs, 7 master's programs, and 30 research centers and institutes...

- emeritus, 1994

Democratic activist

Among the founders of Americans for Democratic Action
Americans for Democratic Action
Americans for Democratic Action is an American political organization advocating progressive policies. ADA works for social and economic justice through lobbying, grassroots organizing, research and supporting progressive candidates.-History:...
Speechwriter for Adlai Stevenson's two presidential campaigns in 1952
United States presidential election, 1952
The United States presidential election of 1952 took place in an era when Cold War tension between the United States and the Soviet Union was escalating rapidly. In the United States Senate, Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin had become a national figure after chairing congressional...

and 1956
United States presidential election, 1956
The United States presidential election of 1956 saw a popular Dwight D. Eisenhower successfully run for re-election. The 1956 election was a rematch of 1952, as Eisenhower's opponent in 1956 was Democrat Adlai Stevenson, whom Eisenhower had defeated four years earlier.Incumbent President Eisenhower...
Speechwriter for John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....

's campaign in 1960
United States presidential election, 1960
The United States presidential election of 1960 was the 44th American presidential election, held on November 8, 1960, for the term beginning January 20, 1961, and ending January 20, 1965. The incumbent president, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, was not eligible to run again. The Republican Party...
1961-1964 Special Assistant to the President for Latin American affairs and speechwriting.
Speechwriter for Robert F. Kennedy
Robert F. Kennedy
Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy , also referred to by his initials RFK, was an American politician, a Democratic senator from New York, and a noted civil rights activist. An icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Kennedy family, he was a younger brother of President John F...

's campaign in 1968
United States presidential election, 1968
The United States presidential election of 1968 was the 46th quadrennial United States presidential election. Coming four years after Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson won in a historic landslide, it saw Johnson forced out of the race and Republican Richard Nixon elected...
Speechwriter for George McGovern
George McGovern
George Stanley McGovern is an historian, author, and former U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party nominee in the 1972 presidential election....

's campaign in 1972
United States presidential election, 1972
The United States presidential election of 1972 was the 47th quadrennial United States presidential election. It was held on November 7, 1972. The Democratic Party's nomination was eventually won by Senator George McGovern, who ran an anti-war campaign against incumbent Republican President Richard...
Active in the presidential campaign of Ted Kennedy
Ted Kennedy
Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. Serving almost 47 years, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died and is the fourth-longest-serving senator in United States history...

in 1980
United States presidential election, 1980
The United States presidential election of 1980 featured a contest between incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter and his Republican opponent, Ronald Reagan, as well as Republican Congressman John B. Anderson, who ran as an independent...
From May 2005 to his death, he was a contributing blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...

ger at The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post is an American news website and content-aggregating blog founded by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti, featuring liberal minded columnists and various news sources. The site offers coverage of politics, theology, media, business, entertainment, living, style,...

.

Death

Mr. Schlesinger died on February 28, 2007, at the age of 89. According to The New York Times he experienced cardiac arrest while dining out with family members in Manhattan. The newspapers have dubbed him a "historian of power."

Works

His 1949 book The Vital Center
The Vital Center
The Vital Center: The Politics of Freedom is a 1949 book, by Harvard historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., defending liberal democracy and a state regulated market economy against the totalitarianism of communism and fascism....

made a case for the New Deal

New Deal

The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...

policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt

, while harshly critical of both unregulated capitalism

Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...

and of those liberals such as Henry A. Wallace

Henry A. Wallace

Henry Agard Wallace was the 33rd Vice President of the United States , the Secretary of Agriculture , and the Secretary of Commerce . In the 1948 presidential election, Wallace was the nominee of the Progressive Party.-Early life:Henry A...

who advocated coexistence with communism

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

.

He won a Pulitzer Prize

Pulitzer Prize

for History in 1946 for his book The Age of Jackson, and another in the Biography category in 1966 for A Thousand Days.

His 1986 book The Cycles of American History was an early work on cycles in politics in the United States; it was influenced by his father's work on cycles.

He became a leading opponent of multiculturalism

Multiculturalism

Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...

in the 1980s and articulated this stance in his book The Disuniting of America (1991).

In his book The Politics of Hope (1962), Schlesinger terms conservatives the "party of the past" and liberals "the party of hope" and calls for overcoming the division between both parties.

Published posthumously in 2007, Journals 1952-2000 is the 894-page distillation of 6,000 pages of Schlesinger diaries on a wide variety of subjects, edited by Andrew and Stephen Schlesinger.

This is a list of his published works:

1939 Orestes A. Brownson: A Pilgrim's Progress

1945 The Age of Jackson

1949 The Vital Center: The Politics of Freedom
The Vital Center
The Vital Center: The Politics of Freedom is a 1949 book, by Harvard historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., defending liberal democracy and a state regulated market economy against the totalitarianism of communism and fascism....

1950 What About Communism?

1951 The General and the President, and the Future of American Foreign Policy

1957 The Crisis of the Old Order: 1919-1933 (The Age of Roosevelt, Vol. I)

1958 The Coming of the New Deal: 1933-1935 (The Age of Roosevelt, Vol. II)

1960 The Politics of Upheaval: 1935-1936 (The Age of Roosevelt, Vol. III)

1960 Kennedy or Nixon: Does It Make Any Difference?

1962 The Politics of Hope

1963 Paths of American Thought (ed. with Morton White
Morton White
Morton White is an American philosopher and historian of ideas. He is both a central figure in the philosophical movement of Holistic Pragmatism and a noted historian of American philosophical thought...

)

1965 A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House
A Thousand Days (book)
A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House is a 1965 book written by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. about the politics and personalities in the cabinet of President John F. Kennedy. In 1966 it won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography and the National Book Award for History and...

1965 The MacArthur Controversy and American Foreign Policy

1967 Bitter Heritage: Vietnam and American Democracy, 1941-1966

1967 Congress and the Presidency: Their Role in Modern Times

1968 Violence: America in the Sixties

1969 The Crisis of Confidence: Ideas, Power, and Violence in America

1970 The Origins of the Cold War

1973 The Imperial Presidency
The Imperial Presidency
The Imperial Presidency by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. was written in 1973.This book details the history of the Presidency of the United States from its conception by the Constitutional Founders, through the late twentieth century...

— reissued in 1989 (with epilogue) & 2004

1978 Robert Kennedy and His Times

1983 Creativity in Statecraft

1986 Cycles of American History

1988 JFK Remembered

1988 War and the Constitution: Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt

1990 Is the Cold War Over?

1991 The Disuniting of America
The Disuniting of America
The Disuniting of America : Reflections on a Multicultural Society is a 1991 book that Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., a former advisor to the Kennedy and other US administrations and Pulitzer Prize winner, wrote....

: Reflections on a Multicultural Society

2000 A Life in the 20th Century, Innocent Beginnings, 1917-1950

2004 War and the American Presidency

2007 Journals 1952-2000'
2011 Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life With John F Kennedy (Mrs. Kennedy's interview shortly after her husband's assassination)

He also wrote a book about Cleopatra.

Schlesinger's papers will be available at the New York Public Library

New York Public Library

The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...

Awards

1946 Pulitzer Prize for History
Pulitzer Prize for History
The Pulitzer Prize for History has been awarded since 1917 for a distinguished book upon the history of the United States. Many history books have also been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction and Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography...

- The Age of Jackson
1958 Bancroft Prize
Bancroft Prize
The Bancroft Prize is awarded each year by the trustees of Columbia University for books about diplomacy or the history of the Americas. It was established in 1948 by a bequest from Frederic Bancroft...

- The Crisis of the Old Order
1958 Francis Parkman Prize
Francis Parkman Prize
The Francis Parkman Prize, named after Francis Parkman, is awarded by the Society of American Historians for the best book in American history each year. Its purpose is to promote literary distinction in historical writing...

- The Crisis of the Old Order
1965 National Book Award
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...

- A Thousand Days
1966 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography
The Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography has been presented since 1917 for a distinguished biography or autobiography by an American author.-1910s:* 1917: Julia Ward Howe by Laura E...

- A Thousand Days
1979 National Book Award
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...

- Robert Kennedy and His Times
1998 National Humanities Medal
National Humanities Medal
The National Humanities Medal honors individuals or groups whose work has deepened the nation’s understanding of the humanities, broadened citizens’ engagement with the humanities, or helped preserve and expand Americans’ access to important resources in the humanities.The award, given by the...
2003 Four Freedoms Award
2006 Paul Peck Award
2006 Medal Awarded by Elmhurst College
Elmhurst College
Elmhurst College is a comprehensive private liberal arts college in Elmhurst, Illinois with a tradition of service-oriented learning. It has a rich affiliation with the United Church of Christ.- History :‎...

to an individual who exemplifies the ideals of Reinhold
Reinhold Niebuhr
Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr was an American theologian and commentator on public affairs. Starting as a leftist minister in the 1920s indebted to theological liberalism, he shifted to the new Neo-Orthodox theology in the 1930s, explaining how the sin of pride created evil in the world...

and H. Richard Niebuhr
H. Richard Niebuhr
Helmut Richard Niebuhr was one of the most important Christian theological-ethicists in 20th century America, most known for his 1951 book Christ and Culture and his posthumously published book The Responsible Self. The younger brother of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, Richard Niebuhr taught for...

. Schlesinger was greatly influenced by Reinhold Niebuhr.

External links

Lee Spilberg, "Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. Papers 1922-2007: Online Finding Aid," The New York Public Library Manuscripts and Archives Division, MssCol 17775, Nov. 2010.
Eisler, Kim. "Arthur Schlesinger Dishes Dirt", Washingtonian, March 6, 2008.
An incredible writer and a proud Liberal all his life. The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and "court philosopher" of the Kennedy administration was 89 when he died.
Washington Post obituary
New York Times obituary

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Early life and career

Political activities prior to 1960

Kennedy Administration

Later career

Personal life

Education

World War II service

Educator

Democratic activist

Death

Works

Awards

Further reading

External links