Deceased November 29, 2014

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50th Reunion Book Entry 

In Memory

Leonard C. Meeker, one of the few remaining members of the class of 1937, died on Nov. 29, 2014, at his home on Ocracoke Island, N.C.

Though his final years were quiet, peaceful and punctuated by frequent visitors, our father led a truly remarkable life—one that found him behind Communist lines in China during World War II; working in the solicitor general’s office after the war; serving in the State Department (where he helped Secretary of State Rusk and President Kennedy defuse the Cuban Missile Crisis); becoming legal adviser under President Johnson; serving as ambassador to Romania during the Cold War; and, following government service, pursuing international environmental issues at the Center for Law and Social Policy until his retirement at age 65.

Our father attended Deerfield Academy before Amherst and later graduated from Harvard Law School, where he was on the Law Review’s board of editors. Like many of his generation, he chose a life of public service. He was particularly influenced by two Amherst professors, Lawrence Packard and Theodore Baird, and remained passionate about the College. His continuing connection with Amherst included a longtime friendship with Armour Craig ’37, who went on to become an Amherst professor and interim president. His final acts in public life were on the Board of the Union of Concerned Scientists in Boston and in town governance on Ocracoke. He also served as unofficial chief for our brother Charles in numerous successful political campaigns in Raleigh, N.C. Amherst awarded our father an honorary degree in 1967.

His first wife died of cancer in 1958. He married Beverly in 1969. She survives him. All six children are, fortunately, still alive: the three of us and Charles, James and Eliza. There are nine grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Ben Meeker ’98
Sarah Meeker Jensen ’77
Richard H. Meeker ’70

50th Reunion

Possessing in 1937 the unlimited horizons of youth, I never contemplated a period of 50 years into the future with the realization that there were historical limits on my activity and experience. But that period of time has nearly passed, and a lot has happened in the interval.

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To summarize as to professional life: law school at Harvard for three years; one year as a lawyer at the Treasury; another year in the Office of Solicitor General (writing briefs for the Government's cases in the Supreme Court); then beginning in 1942 four years in the U.S. Army, assigned for the greater part of that time to the Office of Strategic Services and spending two years in China watching the forthcoming takeover by the Chinese Communists which official America resisted believing; after the war to the State Department where my chief as Solicitor General had become Legal Advisor, I worked on the state treaty with Austria in London, Moscow, and Washington, on the peace treaty with Japan, on United Nations affairs for many years, then a Deputy Legal Advisor 1961-1965 and Legal Advisor 1965-`969, With the inauguration of Richard Nixon, who had promised in his campaign to clean house in the State Department, the Department moved me to Romania where I had the fun of being Ambassador for four years.

After the second Nixon election, in a landslide victory, my services were dispensed with for "lack of positive loyalty" to Nixon. For the next seven years I practiced law in the Federal courts as a member of a public-interest law firm, the Center for Law and Social Policy - environment, consumer protection, and human rights. In 1981, for lack of funding, the Center shrank drastically, and I thought it was time anyway for me to leave that occupation. In the ensuing five years I have worked on an oral history of the school to which al lof my children have gone in Washington; I have served as chairman of the board of the Contemporary Music Forum; and I have been a member of the board of directors of the Union of Concerned Scientists. The Union is concerned with nuclear power plant safety and with control of nuclear armaments. We have published studies opposing any first use of nuclear weapons, opposing anti-satellite weapons and opposing the Star Wars program. Most recently (July, 1986) I attended a conference in Moscow on a comprehensive ban of nuclear weapon tests. My general conclusion after all this is that the sooner we have a President completely different from Ronald Reagan the better off the country and the world will be.

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Family: After returning from china I was married in 1947 to Christine Halliday. We had three children: Richard, now publisher of Willamette Week in Portland, Ore.; Charles, now a lawyer wand member of the City Council in Raleigh, N.C.; and Sarah Louise, now an architect in San Francisco and married to surgeon Arthur Jensen; a total of four grandchildren at this time. Christine died of cancer in 1958. Eleven years later I was fortunate in marrying my present wife Beverley. We have had three more children: Eliza, now 15 and about to enter Concord Academy; James, 12; and Benjamin, 10.

Avocations: I intended learning Greek, but got only to chapter 23 in the grammar before a hiatus set in. I intended also to do some more painting; I had gone to art school at night in the relatively somnolent Eisenhower `50's; but here again I have no performed well. Maybe next year? But then I am to go to Finland in October; there are visits to see grandchildren; and there is lots to do at home.