Christian A. Herter, Jr.

Christian Archibald Herter, Jr. (January 29, 1919 – September 16, 2007) was an American politician, diplomat, oil executive and academic and the son of U.S. Secretary of State Christian A. Herter Sr.

Early life

Christian Archibald Herter Jr. was born in Brooklyn, New York on January 29, 1919, and raised in Boston. His father, Christian A. Herter Sr., was elected to the United States House of Representatives as a Republican from Massachusetts in 1942, and in 1953 was elected Governor of Massachusetts. In 1959, the elder Mr. Herter became the United States Secretary of State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Herter's mother, the former Mary Caroline Pratt, was a granddaughter of Charles Pratt, a partner in Standard Oil of New Jersey and the founder of the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.

He received his bachelor’s from Harvard University. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1948 and eventually joined the Boston law firm of Bingham, Dana & Gould, where he became an authority on helping U.S. companies trying to expand into the international market.

World War II

Herter joined the U.S. Army in 1941, before the Pearl Harbor attack. In World War II, Herter was an officer in Europe, serving as an intelligence officer with the 14th Armored Division and was wounded by artillery shrapnel. He was awarded the Purple Heart and a Bronze Star, among other commendations.

Career

In 1950, he was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives as the representative for West Newton; he was re-elected two years later but stepped down after his father became governor. "I found it difficult to represent Newton," he told the Boston Globe, "while I was almost unanimously regarded as spokesman for my father."^[1]

In 1953 he became an aide to Vice President Richard Nixon and travelled with Nixon on his first tour of Asia that same year.^[2] After working with Nixon, Herter became the general counsel to the Foreign Operations Administration, an overseas aid program then led by former Minnesota Governor Harold E. Stassen.

Herter returned to Massachusetts in the mid-1950s and served one term on the Governor's Council.

Believing the Democratic leadership at the State House had ignored development and turned the state into an economic shell, he decided to run against Governor Foster Furcolo, a Democrat. He failed to win the support of the Republican Party of Massachusetts convention in the summer, however, and withdrew to support the nominee, Massachusetts Attorney General George Fingold.

The party backed Herter to run for attorney general. He lost the general election to Democrat Edward J. McCormack.

In 1961 Herter joined the Mobil Oil Corporation, rising to become a Vice President of that company by 1967. In that same year New York Mayor John V. Lindsay appointed him as one of the inaugural members of the Urban Coalition, a group of business, labour and neighbourhood leaders created to aid the city’s slums. Mr. Herter was the coalition’s chairman until 1969.

In 1970 President Nixon appointed Herter to the post of deputy assistant secretary of state for environmental and population affairs.

Mr. Herter later taught environmental law at the University of New Mexico and international law at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan appointed him deputy United States commissioner on the International Whaling Commission.^[3] Herter later served chairman of the U.S. Section of the International Joint Commission of the United States and Canada.

Clubs

Herter was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Metropolitan Club, the Cosmos Club and the Chevy Chase Club.

Family

Mr. Herter’s marriages to Suzanne Clery (later Treadway) and Susan Cable ended in divorce. He was survived by his wife, the former Catherine Hooker, two brothers, a sister, three children from his marriage to Treadway, four stepchildren, 16 grandchildren and step-grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

Death

Herter died at his home in Washington D.C. of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on September 16, 2007. He was 88 years old.

Notes

Sources

• New York Times Obituary
• Boston Globe Obituary
• Obituary at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies
• Statement by Christian A. Herter, Jr., special assistant to the Secretary of State for Environmental Affairs, in the Preparatory Committee for the Conference on Human Environment, March 11, 1970