John C. Whitehead

Infobox Officeholder
name = John C. Whitehead

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office = U.S. Deputy Secretary of State
term_start = 1985
term_end = 1989
president = Ronald Reagan
predecessor = Kenneth W. Dam
successor = Lawrence S. Eagleburger
birth_date = birth date and age|1922|4|2
birth_place = Evanston, Illinois
death_date =
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nationality = flag|United States
party = Republican Party
spouse = Nancy Dickerson
children =
alma_mater = Haverford College
occupation = Investment banker
net worth =
religion =


website =
footnotes =

John Cunningham Whitehead (born April 2 1922), is currently the chairman of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation (WTC Memorial Foundation), and former chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation until he resigned in May of 2006. [ [http://www.lowermanhattan.info/news/whitehead_resigns_as_lmdc_17506.aspx "Whitehead Resigns as LMDC Chairman"] @ LMDC - Lower Manhattan.info - May 11, 2006]

Born in Evanston, Illinois his family moved to Montclair, New Jersey when he was two years old. [ [http://www.hbs.edu/entrepreneurs/pdf/johnwhitehead.pdf "John Whitehead"] interview @ Harvard Business School (Adobe Acrobat *.PDF document)]

Whitehead graduated from Haverford College in 1943 and served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, where he commanded one of the landing crafts at Omaha Beach, in the D-Day landing invasion of Normandy. [http://www.perseusbooksgroup.com/basic/book_detail.jsp?isbn=0465050549 "A Life In Leadership"] @ Basic Books] [ [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121503561463124251.html?mod=opinion_journal_main_stories"A Day at the Beach"] @ OpinionJournal - July 4, 2008]

Later he joined the prestigious New York investment bank of Goldman Sachs, rising to become chairman over a total period at the firm of 38 years; retiring in 1984 as Co-Chairman and Senior Partner.

He served as United States Deputy Secretary of State in Ronald Reagan's administration from 1985 to 1989 under George Shultz, and was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by President Reagan. In 1996, he was the campaign chairman for Michael Benjamin who ran for a seat in New York's 8th congressional district.

He is former Chairman of the Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the United Nations Association, and a former Chairman of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Harvard Board of Overseers. He is a former director of the New York Stock Exchange and Chairman Emeritus of The Brookings Institution.

He has a long association with the Rockefeller family, having held positions at various times with family-created institutions such as Rockefeller University, the Asia Society (where he is Chaiman Emeritus and Honorary Life Trustee), the Lincoln Center Theater and the WTC Memorial Foundation. In these organisations, and previously when he was for a time on the family's powerful Trust Committee, overseeing the family fortune and investments of the Rockefeller Group, the real estate firm that previously owned and managed Rockefeller Center, he became closely associated with David Rockefeller.

As an alumnus of Haverford College in Pennsylvania, he has had the campus center and the chair of the philosophy department named after him. The John C. Whitehead School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University is also named after him. He received an honorary LL.D. from Bates College in 2004.

He also serves on the board of the International Rescue Committee, an international human rights organization. In 1987, he was awarded the IRC's Freedom Award, along with Elie Weisel. [ [http://www.theirc.org/about/freedomaward.html The IRC Freedom Award] ] Other recipients of the award have included Winston Churchill, Hubert Humphrey, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, John McCain, Lech Wałęsa, Hamid Karzai, Madeleine Albright, and Václav Havel. Whitehead is an Eagle Scout and recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award. He has been Chairman of the Financial Services Volunteer Corps (FSVC) since July, 2005. He is also an Advisory Board member for the Partnership for a Secure America, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to recreating the bipartisan center in American national security and foreign policy.

Whitehead was married to the late pioneering television newswoman, Nancy Dickerson until her death; her son, John Dickerson, the writer, is one of his stepchildren. In 2003, Mr. Whitehead dedicated the Nancy Dickerson Whitehead Community Service Center for Homeless Youth in Southeast Washington, D.C. with a generous gift to Covenant House.

In 2005, Whitehead published a memoir "A Life In Leadership: From D-Day to Ground Zero."

In 2006, Whitehead was one of the most notable Republican donors to the campaign of Joseph Lieberman in his independent re-election campaign for the U.S. Senate. [cite news|last=Lightman|first=David|title=GOP Gave Joe A Boost|publisher=Hartford Courant|year=2007|date=March 19, 2007|url=http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-joemoney0319.artmar19,0,1424810.story?coll=hc-headlines-home|accessdate=2007-03-19]

Notes

External links

* [http://www.gs.com/our_firm/our_culture/social_responsibility/gs_foundation/articles/board_of_trustees_article_030616194436.html Goldman Sachs biography]
* [http://www.clarke.edu/news/NDWMedallion/whitehead.htm Clarke College: Brief Biography]