Kingman Brewster Jr. | |
|---|---|
 Brewster,c. 1951 | |
| Master of University College, Oxford | |
| In office 1986–1988 | |
| Preceded by | Arnold Goodman |
| Succeeded by | John Albery |
| United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom | |
| In office June 3, 1977 – February 23, 1981 | |
| President | Jimmy Carter Ronald Reagan |
| Preceded by | Anne Armstrong |
| Succeeded by | John J. Louis Jr. |
| 17thPresident of Yale University | |
| In office 1963–1977 | |
| Preceded by | Whitney Griswold |
| Succeeded by | Hanna Holborn Gray |
| 8th Provost ofYale University | |
| In office 1960–1963 | |
| Preceded by | Norman Buck |
| Succeeded by | Charles Taylor |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1919-06-17)June 17, 1919 |
| Died | November 8, 1988(1988-11-08) (aged 69) Oxford, United Kingdom |
| Resting place | Grove Street Cemetery |
| Party | Republican |
| Spouse | Mary Phillips |
| Children | 5 |
| Relatives | Jordana Brewster (granddaughter) Janet Huntington Brewster (cousin) |
| Education | Yale University (BA) Harvard University (LLB) |
Kingman Brewster Jr. (June 17, 1919 – November 8, 1988) was an American educator, academic and diplomat. He served as the 17th president ofYale University and asUnited States ambassador to the United Kingdom.
Brewster was born inLongmeadow, Massachusetts,[1] the son of Florence Foster (née Besse), a 1907Phi Beta Kappa graduate ofWellesley College,[2][3] and Kingman Brewster Sr., a 1906Phi Beta Kappa graduate ofAmherst College and a 1911 graduate ofHarvard Law School.[4][5][6] He was a direct lineal descendant of ElderWilliam Brewster (c. 1567 – April 10, 1644), theMayflower passenger, Pilgrim colonist leader, and spiritual elder of thePlymouth Colony, through his sonJonathan Brewster. He was also descended fromMayflower passengerJohn Howland.[7] He was a grandson of Charles Kingman Brewster[4][5] and Celina Sophia Baldwin, and Lyman Waterman Besse and Henrietta Louisa Segee. His maternal grandfather, Lyman W. Besse, owned an extensive chain of clothing stores in the Northeast known as "The Besse System."[5][8] His paternal granddaughter is actressJordana Brewster.
In 1923, when he was four, his parents separated and later divorced.[1] Brewster and his surviving sister, Mary, were raised by their mother first inSpringfield, Massachusetts, and later inCambridge, Massachusetts. His mother was a firm influence but never overbearing. One of Brewster's friends characterized her as "one of those people whose presence you always felt when she was in the room."[9] Another friend remembered that "she knew poetry, she knew music, she knew art, she knew architecture, and believe me, she knew Kingman."[9]
Brewster wrote that his mother was a "marvelously speculative and philosophical type," a "free-thinking spirit... given to far-out enthusiasms and delighting in sprightly arguments with her more intellectually-conventional friends.[1][9]
His mother remarried in 1932 toEdward Ballantine, a music professor atHarvard University and composer she had known since childhood. Ballantine had no children of his own and was not interested in a parental role. Brewster's uncle, Arthur Besse, stepped into the role of surrogate father.[10]
In 1942, while serving in the armed forces, Brewster married Mary Louise Phillips inJacksonville, Florida.[11][12] Phillips was born August 30, 1920, inProvidence, Rhode Island, the daughter of Mary and Eugene James Phillips[13] (he was a 1905 graduate ofYale College, and a 1907 graduate ofYale Law School). She graduated in 1939 from theWheeler School and attended but did not graduate fromVassar College. She died on April 14, 2004, at her home inCombe, Berkshire,England, at 83. She was buried next to her husband in theGrove Street Cemetery.[14]
Brewster and his wife had five children. Their granddaughter is actressJordana Brewster. His first cousin wasJanet Huntington Brewster[4][15][16] (September 18, 1910 –December 18, 1998) who was an American philanthropist, writer, radio broadcaster, and relief worker during World War II in London. She was married toEdward R. Murrow (April 25, 1908 – April 27, 1965) who was an American broadcast journalist. His uncle,Stanley King, (May 11, 1883 – April 28, 1951) was the eleventh president ofAmherst College, from 1932 to 1946.[17]
After graduating fromBelmont Hill School[18] in Massachusetts, Brewster entered Yale College,[19] joining the newly establishedTimothy Dwight residential college[20] and graduating in 1941. Then, he became chairman of theYale Daily News. During his junior year, he turned down an offer of membership inSkull and Bones, becoming a legend in Yale undergraduate lore.
Like many students at the time, he was an ardent opponent of the US enteringWorld War II and was an outspokennoninterventionist. Brewster idolized fellow antiwar activistCharles Lindbergh, was entranced by Lindbergh's Trans-Atlantic flight, and remained (in his words) "bug-eyed about aviation" his entire life. He invited Lindbergh in 1940 to speak at Yale. At the time of the invitation, Lindbergh was the nation's best-known isolationist and the most prominent private citizen opposed to the war. He and Lindbergh strategized on theAmerica First Committee,[21] which Brewster had founded, along with other students at Yale, after thefall of France.[22]
The founding members of the AFC included many of the East Coast universities'best and the brightest, from valedictorians to football all-Americans to campus newspaper editors. Many of the men later achieved national reputations. They included future PresidentGerald Ford; the first director of thePeace Corps,Sargent Shriver; future Supreme Court justicePotter Stewart, and US RepresentativeJonathan Brewster Bingham. The AFC became the most prominent organization in the struggle to keep America out of the European war.
Brewster also took great care to ensure that the noninterventionist movement on campus was not led by social outcasts or malcontents but by "students who had attained relative respect and prominence during their undergraduate years." He emphasized repeatedly that his group represented mainstream campus opinion and that its views were "in agreement with the great majority of Americans of all ages."[22]
Before the end of his senior year, he had officially resigned from the committee after the passage of theLend-Lease Act. Brewster said at the time, "I still believe it outrageous to commit this country to the outcome of the war abroad and wish to limit that commitment as much as possible," he wrote Potter Stewart. However, "the question from now on is not one of principle. It is one of military strategy and administrative policy."
Since the passage of Lend-Lease into law, "there is no room for an avowed pressure group huing [sic] a dogmatic line. Whether we like it or not America has decided what its ends are, and the question of means is not longer a legislative matter. A national pressure group therefore is not aiming to determine policy, it is seeking to obstruct it. I cannot be a part of that effort."[23]
With theattack on Pearl Harbor on the morning ofDecember 7, 1941, he immediately volunteered for service in theUS Navy.[24] During World War II Brewster was a Navy aviator and flew on submarine-hunting patrols over the Atlantic. He served in the Navy from 1942 to 1946. After the war he enteredHarvard Law School, becoming note editor and treasurer of theHarvard Law Review. In 1948, he received his law degreemagna cum laude fromHarvard Law School.[25]
Brewster's first job after graduating was to accompany Professor Milton Katz to Paris, France, to serve as his assistant at the European headquarters of theMarshall Plan.[26] Professor Katz, was a specialist in international law at Harvard Law School and the Deputy Chairman of the Commission for European Recovery, under Averell Harriman, the administrator of the United States Marshall Plan. Though he flourished in the job, Brewster stayed only one year. He returned in 1949, on Katz's advice, to be a research associate in MIT's Department of Economics and Social Science.
From 1949 and 1950, Brewster was a research associate in the Department of Economics and Social Science atMassachusetts Institute of Technology.
From 1950 to 1953, he was an assistant professor of law atHarvard University. From 1953 to 1960, Brewster was a full professor atHarvard Law School.
In 1960, Brewster accepted the post of provost at Yale, serving from 1960 to 1963. After the death of Yale's president,A. Whitney Griswold, despite the fact that Brewster was considered Griswold's logical successor, Yale conducted a lengthy, open, and (for Brewster) agonizing search, which lasted five months. On October 11, 1963, theYale Corporation offered him the presidency by a vote of 13–2; the opposition came from two senior members of the Yale Corporation, who feared that the liberal Republican would push too hard for change in their beloved institution.[27] He served as president ofYale University from 1963 to 1977.[28][29]
Brewster was known for the changes he made to Yale's faculty, curriculum, and admissions policies. He was president of the University when Yale began admitting women as undergraduates.[30] Academic programs in various disciplines were expanded. He was also president when the faculty voted to terminate academic credit for theReserve Officers Training Corps program in June 1971 because of the belief that the program made the University complicit in the war inVietnam. Alumni relations grew testy at times, but fundraising increased throughout his tenure.
Brewster's appointment of liberal theologian Rev.William Sloane Coffin to the post of university chaplain is described in Coffin's autobiography,Once to Every Man.[31] After his appointment, Coffin, a formerCIA operative,Williams College chaplain and Skull & Bones alum, became an ardent antiwar activist. In 1967, along withBenjamin Spock, Yale 1925, he organized a mass protest inBoston,Massachusetts, and then sent hundreds of draft cards back to theUS Justice Department inWashington, D.C. When Brewster defended Coffin, who was arrested in 1968 with Spock for encouraging draft resistance, he did so citing academic freedom. The action only complicated his dealings with an increasingly-wary alumni association.[32]
Brewster was chairman of the National Policy Panel of theUnited Nations in 1968. He was a member of the President's Commission on Selective Service in 1966 and 1967 and of the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice from 1965 to 1967.
In 1963, GovernorGeorge Wallace was invited by theYale Political Union to speak at Yale. Brewster asked the Yale Political Union to revoke its invitation for security reasons. The result was a massive outcry across campus. TheWoodward Report onfree speech, commissioned by Brewster in 1974 was issued in 1975. HistorianC. Vann Woodward chaired the committee, which labeled the so-called "Wallace Affair" an outright failure.[33]
In 1969—against the wishes of theNCAA—Yale Jewish centerJack Langer played for Team United States at the1969 Maccabiah Games in Israel. He did so with the approval of Yale President Kingman Brewster, and the university said it would not stop Langer from "what we feel is a matter of religious freedom." Thereafter, Yale played Langer in basketball games the following season.[34][35][36][37][38] Brewster's special aide said: "There is no question that Jack Langer will continue to play basketball. We don't care what they do - Jack Langer will play when the coach wants to use him."[39] On January 15, 1970, the NCAA Council placed Yale University on two‐year "full athleticprobation" in all sports.[40]
On April 23, 1970, during theNew Haven Black Panther trials,[41] Brewster spoke to the faculty at Yale. His remarks, which were leaked to the press, made that a day which would follow him for the rest of his life: "I am appalled and ashamed that things should have come to such a pass in this country that I am skeptical of the ability of black revolutionaries to achieve a fair trial anywhere in the United States."[42] This remark, made one week before the tumultuous May Day protests of the Black Panther trials, was decried in editorials and speeches across the country. Vice PresidentSpiro T. Agnew jumped into the fray calling for Brewster's immediate resignation.[43][44][45][46]
McGeorge Bundy, the president of theFord Foundation, addressed the Yale Club of Boston just days before the May Day demonstrations and assured his fellow alumni that "one of the things I have observed about my friend Brewster is that he will deal with anyone and surrender his responsibilities to nobody."[47]
Brewster inevitably would be judged on May Day's outcome because he had opened his university to all those coming to New Haven to support the Panthers, even offering them food and shelter. Brewster knew that in the face of potential catastrophe, he had the support of other leaders cast from the same mold: friends and colleagues who shared his background and outlook.[46]
On May 1, 1970, at ten minutes before midnight, bombers exploded three devices in theYale hockey rink. Protesters threw rocks and bottles at the National Guardsmen and taunted the New Haven police. The authorities responded by tear-gassing the demonstrators. Yale chaplain, William Sloane Coffin, stated, "All of us conspired to bring on this tragedy by law enforcement agencies by their illegal acts against the Panthers, and the rest of us by our immoral silence in front of these acts." Fortunately, there were no fatalities that evening.[46][48]
PresidentRichard Nixon commenting on the events of May 1, 1970, to theShah of Iran,Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, stated that to be fair to the students, they were not entirely to be blamed for their actions that day: "What can we expect of students if a person in that position and of that stature (Brewster) engages in such acts?"[49][50]Henry Kissinger, sitting just a few chairs away, mused aloud that Brewster was the one man whose assassination would benefit the United States.[49][50] It was Brewster's handling of the May Day demonstrations and his actions after the crisis that made him a target of the NixonWhite House.[49][50][51]
He is also well known for his handling of the student protests on the Yale campus during theVietnam War era, a war that Brewster openly criticized and opposed. He never allowed such convictions to disrupt the University's operations, especially classes.[52]
On May 12, 1972, Brewster made a public statement, printed in full on the front page of theYale Daily News, prior to a campus visit byRichard Nixon's Secretary of StateWilliam P. Rogers. Brewster, on the one hand, threatened to expel students who might bar Rogers from speaking. Still, he also said that he "expects" disciplined picketing and asked that students appropriately protest Rogers's appearance. In the end, Rogers canceled his appearance citing "pressing engagements".[53]
As Yale's president, he appointedR. Inslee Clark Jr. ("Inky")[54][55] as Director of Undergraduate Admissions. Under his tenure, he established academic credentials in the admissions process and the proportion of undergraduate African-Americans, Jews, and public high school graduates at Yale rose. Despite the alumni outrage over these policy changes, Clark held the position from 1965 to 1970.[55]
No aspect of Brewster's presidency stirred more anger and debate than the overhaul of Yale's single-gender undergraduate admissions policy in the 1960s.[56] He also had made it clear from the beginning of his presidency that he was not going to preside over a finishing school on Long Island Sound.[57] Admissions became the battleground over the university's true purpose.
While serving as Yale's president, he was nominated by PresidentJimmy Carter on April 7, 1977, to serve asU.S. Ambassador to the Court of St James's. He was confirmed by theUnited States Senate on April 29, 1977, and he served from 1977 to 1981.[58][59]Secretary of StateCyrus Vance, a member of the Yale Corporation, and a close personal friend, recommended him to President Carter for the position.[60] Despite his lack of diplomatic experience, the British press was pleased with the appointment, calling Brewster potentially the best ambassador sinceDavid K. E. Bruce. They described Brewster as a "New England Patrician" and expressed delight at his gold ring with his family motto in Norman French. "My role," he said at the time, "is trying to advise my Government on British attitudes and concerns in the fullest way possible."
He was called to step in and resolve difficulties between United Nations AmbassadorAndrew Young and theBritish Foreign Office. This was followed by smoothing out American/British difficulties over policy towardRhodesia (Zimbabwe), which helped lead to the end of minority white rule in that country. Brewster reveled in the "good life" of London and took advantage of the range of social occasions from dinner withElizabeth II of the United Kingdom to quaffing a pint of ale in a working class pub, saying, "Becoming aware of the richness and variety here is a lot of fun."[61]
After stepping down as ambassador in 1981, Brewster was associated with the New York-based law firm of Winthrop, Stimson, Putnam & Roberts.[62] In 1984, he became its resident partner in London. In 1986, Brewster served as aSpecial Master in the free agency case ofNBA forwardAlbert King of theNew Jersey Nets, ultimately ruling King could be a free agent.[63]
In 1986, Brewster was appointed Master ofUniversity College, Oxford, serving from 1986 until his death in Oxford in 1988.[64] During this period, he was also the chairman of the Board of theUnited World Colleges.[65]
He died on November 8, 1988, atJohn Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, England. Brewster was buried in theGrove Street Cemetery inNew Haven, Connecticut.[6]
He is thought to be the inspiration forGarry Trudeau's fictional character,President King, in the popularcomic stripDoonesbury.
Brewster was elected a Fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1956.[66] He received several honorary Doctor of Laws degrees. They were awarded byPrinceton University in 1964,[67] theUniversity of Pennsylvania in 1965,[68]Boston College in 1968,[69]Michigan State University in 1969,[70] and Yale University in 1977. He was elected to theAmerican Philosophical Society in 1978.[71]
Brewster received honorary degrees from 11 British universities while he was ambassador. He received an honorary doctorate fromUniversity of Cambridge in 1978 and became the second American master ofUniversity College, Oxford in 1985.[72]
He is the author ofAnti-trust and American Business Abroad (1969) and coauthor ofLaw of International Transactions and Relations (1960).
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
| Diplomatic posts | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom 1977–1981 | Succeeded by |
| Academic offices | ||
| Preceded by | President ofYale University 1963–1977 | Succeeded by Hanna Holborn Gray,acting |
| Preceded by | Master of University College, Oxford 1986–1988 | Succeeded by |
