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Adlai E. Stevenson was sworn in as United States Representative to the United Nations and a member of President Kennedy’s Cabinet on January 21, 1961. He presented his credentials to the Secretary General of the United Nations on January 23, 1961. |
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Mr. Stevenson was born in Los Angeles, California, on February 5, 1900, the son of Lewis Green and Helen Louise (Davis) Stevenson. He was the grandson and namesake of Adlai Ewing Stevenson, Vice President of the United States during the second term of President Grover Cleveland. Through his mother, he was a great grandson of Jesse W. Fell, Illinois Quaker pioneer, close friend of Lincoln and first to propose him for the Presidency. |
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He attended public school at Bloomington, Illinois, and prepared for College at the Choate School in Wallingford, Connecticut. He served as an apprentice seaman in the U.S. Naval Reserve in 1918, and graduated from Princeton University in 1922, where he was editor of the college daily newspaper and active in student affairs. After college he, worked on the Daily Pantagraph, Bloomington, Illinois, a newspaper established by his great grandfather in 1846, and studied law at Harvard and Northwestern University Law School. In 1926 he was admitted to the Illinois Bar and, following travels in Central Europe and Russia as a newspaper correspondent, he commenced practice in Chicago. |
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In 1933 and 1934, Mr. Stevenson served in Washington with the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, resuming the practice of law in Chicago as a partner in a large firm, now entitled Sidley, Austin, Burgess and Smith, in 1935. In July, 1941 he was called back to Washington as Special Assistant and personal counsel to Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, a post he filled until after Knox's death on April 28, 1944. In 1943, at the direction of President Roosevelt, he headed a mission to Italy to plan economic support and revival of that war ravaged country. |
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In 1944 he was in London and the European theatre of war as a member of an Air Force survey mission. In 1945, he was appointed Special Assistant to Secretary of State Stettinius to assist in the preparation of the United Nations organization. After the San Francisco Conference he went to London as U.S. Minister and succeeded Mr. Stettinius as Chief of the U.S. Delegation to the Preparatory Commission of the United Nations. At the first meeting of the General Assembly in London he was Senior Advisor to the U.S. Delegation headed by the Secretary of State, James F. Byrnes, and President Truman appointed him a Delegate to the General Assembly in New York in 1946 and 1947. |
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Mr. Stevenson was elected Governor of Illinois in November 1948 by the largest plurality in the history of that State, and had served one term when he was drafted in 1952 by the Democratic National Convention to run for President against General Eisenhower. In 1956 he was nominated on the first ballot to again head the National Democratic ticket. |
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In November and December 1957, at the request of President Eisenhower Mr. Stevenson served as Consultant to the Secretary of State in the preparation for the North Atlantic Treaty Council meeting in Paris. |
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Mr. Stevenson resigned in January, 1961 from his law firm known as Stevenson, Rifkind and Wirtz in Chicago and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison in New York. He is a member of the Chicago, Illinois, New York and Washington, D.C. Bar Associations. Mr. Stevenson is a director or trustee of many businesses, educational and philanthropic organizations. He is the author of seven books and many magazine articles and lectures. Many universities and colleges have awarded him honorary degrees, including Oxford, Princeton, Columbia, Northwestern, McGill, etc. |
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Mr. Stevenson has traveled extensively since childhood and is acquainted with many contemporary leaders around the world. In 1955 and 1957 he traveled extensively in Africa, following a long journey around the world in 1953. In the summer of 1958 he traveled to Europe and Scandinavia, and visited the Soviet Union for the first time in thirty years, including Siberia and Central Asia. In 1960 he traveled extensively in Latin America. In 1961 he visited the South American countries to lay the groundwork for President Kennedy's Alliance for Progress program. He was present in Moscow on August 5, 1963 as a member of the U. S. Delegation for the signing of the nuclear test ban treaty. As the Personal Representative of President Johnson, he led the U. S. Delegation to the inauguration of President Eduardo Frei Montalva in Santiago, Chile - November, 1964. |
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Adlai Stevenson has three sons, three grandsons and two granddaughters. He makes his home on a small farm near Libertyville, Illinois, about forty miles from Chicago. |
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