MARGARET TRUMAN DANIEL, DAUGHTER OF HARRY TRUMAN
Margaret Truman Daniel, the president’s daughter who achieved renown in her own right as a concert singer, radio and television host, and author of best-selling biographies and mysteries, died on Tuesday in Chicago. She was 83 and had lived until recently on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
Her death was announced by her oldest son, Clifton Truman Daniel. Mrs. Daniel died after a brief illness in an assisted living center, where she had been on a respirator, according to the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum in Independence, Mo. A library spokeswoman said Mrs. Daniel had been preparing to move from her Park Avenue home to Chicago to live near Mr. Daniel.
Most Americans first knew Margaret Truman as the young woman with blue-green eyes, ash-blond hair and dimpled cheeks who was the only child of the somewhat obscure vice president from Missouri who had ascended to the presidency on the sudden death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 12, 1945, as World War II neared its end.
Before long, they were following her career as the aspiring singer whose doting father sprang to her defense with a memorably scorching letter to a Washington music critic who had had the temerity to belittle her talent.
In time there was her headline-making marriage to a dashing newspaperman, Clifton Daniel, who eventually became the managing editor of The New York Times, and the birth of their four sons.
As the decades passed, Americans by the hundreds of thousands knew Mrs. Daniel, too, as Margaret Truman, the author of 32 books, including biographies of both her parents and 23 mystery novels in her popular “Capital Crime Series,” all set in and around Washington.
The confrontation that in retrospect became the climax of Mrs. Daniel’s singing career took place in December 1950. She had been singing professionally since March 16, 1947, when she made her debut as a coloratura with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in a radio broadcast that drew an audience estimated at 15 million and, afterward, mixed reviews from the critics.
Later that year, in her first appearance on a concert stage, she sang before a huge audience — estimates range from 15,000 to 20,000 people — at the Hollywood Bowl, accompanied by the 90-piece Hollywood Bowl Symphony, led by her favorite conductor, Eugene Ormandy. In the next few years she sang in more than 30 cities, appeared at Carnegie Hall and signed an exclusive contract with RCA Victor Red Seal Records.
‘You’ll Need a New Nose’
And so she came to Constitution Hall in Washington.
“Because of my father, I was more easily able to obtain important engagements,” she wrote in her book “Letters From Father: The Truman Family’s Personal Correspondence” (Arbor House. 1981). “But I also received more attention by first-string critics and more demanding audiences, who felt that because my father was the president, I had to be not better than average, but better than the best in order to justify my appearing on the stage.”
Mrs. Daniel thought her performance at Constitution Hall to be one of her better ones. But Paul Hume, the music critic of The Washington Post, while praising her personality, wrote that “she cannot sing very well.”
“She is flat a good deal of the time,” Mr. Hume added, concluding that she had no “professional finish.”
Incensed, President Truman dispatched a combative note to Mr. Hume, who released it to the press.
“I have just read your lousy review,” it said in part, adding: “Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you’ll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below!”
In the ensuing uproar, reporters pressed Mrs. Daniel for her reaction to her father’s letter. “I’m glad to see that chivalry is not dead,” she told them.
In a revealing biography, “Harry S. Truman” (William Morrow, 1973), Mrs. Daniel wrote: “Dad discussed the letter with his aides and was annoyed to find that they all thought it was a mistake. They felt that it damaged his image as president and would only add to his political difficulties. ‘Wait till the mail comes in,’ Dad said. ‘I’ll make you a bet that 80 percent of it is on my side of the argument.’
“A week later, after a staff meeting, Dad ordered everybody to follow him, and they marched to the mail room,” Mrs. Daniel continued. “The clerks had stacked up thousands of ‘Hume’ letters received in piles and made up a chart showing the percentages for and against the president. Slightly over 80 percent favored Dad’s defense of me. Most of the letter writers were mothers who said they understood exactly how Dad felt and would have expected their husbands to defend their daughters the same way.
“ ‘The trouble with you guys is,’ Dad said to the staff as he strode back to work, ‘you just don’t understand human nature.’ ”
Read the rest of the article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/nyregion/30daniel.html?ref=obituaries
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LOUIE WELCH, FORMER HOUSTON MAYOR
by Lynwood Abram
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Welch was diagnosed in October with “untreatable stage four lung cancer,” said his son, Gary Welch.
“He was one of Houston’s finest mayors,” said former mayor Bob Lanier. “He was a good and decent man who loved public service and fought to make people’s lives better.”
Welch, who served four terms on Houston City Council and won the mayor’s office on his fourth try, was an effective, aggressive politician whose salty comments occasionally landed him in political trouble.
And while younger generations will remember Welch for the “shoot the queers” joke he made while describing his plan for fighting AIDS that submarined his 1985 mayoral bid, Welch made his most lasting mark on city government decades earlier.
It was on his watch that lakes Conroe and Livingston were completed to provide water for Houston. Welch also boasted of closing 40 inefficient sewage treatment plants; beginning the cleanup of the Houston Ship Channel; bayou beautification; and the development of the downtown Civic Center.
The diminutive Welch (at 5 feet 6 inches) also was an able vote-getter, with a ready smile and a memory for names and faces that served him well.
Welch liked to “press the flesh” with the constituents, a trait he carried over to his job with the then Houston Chamber of Commerce. There he became a kind of ambassador-at-large for the city, singing Houston’s praises across the nation and internationally.
Welch’s political career, which spanned nearly 40 years, began in 1949 when, as a political unknown, he was elected to Houston City Council. He was a councilman for eight years, from 1950 until 1952 and from 1956 to 1962.
After running unsuccessfully for mayor in 1952 and 1954, Welch was elected mayor for the first time in 1963, ousting the entrenched incumbent, Lewis Cutrer.
In challenging Cutrer, Welch’s role was as an outsider jousting with the establishment. As such, he drew support from labor, the poor and minorities. In later years, much of that support evaporated, especially that of blacks.
In 1973 he did not run again, joining what was then the Houston Chamber of Commerce. In his political swan song in 1985, Welch tried to wrest the mayor’s job from Kathy Whitmire. In so doing he alienated another group of outsiders, the city’s gays, who turned out in force against Welch.
During the campaign, Welch, who often referred to the career of politics as a “shooting gallery,” made the notorious remark about homosexuals that was accidentally broadcast during a TV newscast and contributed to his loss to Whitmire.
The newscast included a report about Welch’s four-point program to prevent the spread of AIDS. He offered the joke without realizing his microphone was still on.
‘Don’t shoot, Louie!’
The gaffe triggered numerous newspaper articles and denunciations from various political figures and organizations. Some gays struck back with humor, donning T-shirts that sported the slogan: “Don’t shoot, Louie!” Welch apologized for the remark, but the damage was done. He lost to Whitmire.Coincidentally, the remark finally laid to rest an old nickname for Welch, “Shoot-a-quarter Louie.” This appellation stemmed from a raid in 1952 on Galveston’s luxurious Balinese Room, where illegal gambling was conducted.
Welch and several other Houston city councilmen happened to be in the place when the raid occurred. Welch explained that he never “shot more than a quarter” at the gambling tables.
Welch’s opponents might have questioned his judgment in such matters, but few doubted his devotion to Houston. He enjoyed contact with the press and the public.
Perhaps Welch’s most vexing problem as mayor stemmed from the police chief who served under him: Herman Short, a tough, no-nonsense, outspoken chief who became a lightning rod for discontent among the city’s blacks.
These feelings erupted in May 1967 in two days of battles between Houston police and students at predominantly black Texas Southern University. One police officer was killed and about 500 TSU students were arrested. These events created a rift between the administration and many of the city’s blacks.
More than 20 years later, during his race against Mayor Whitmire, Welch acknowledged that the imputation of racism to him in the wake of the TSU episode still rankled.
“It hurt,” Welch said. “It still hurts to be accused of racism. It’s just a bum rap.”
Despite his problems with the black community, Welch boasted of improving race relations in the city. A fluent speaker of Spanish, Welch was deeply interested in Mexican culture. He resented reports that his support among Mexican-Americans had slipped.
As for gay opposition to Welch, it didn’t originate with his “shoot the queers” remark. In early 1985, Welch was a leader in the opposition to a discrimination referendum that sought to extend job protection rights to homosexuals employed by the city government.
More than 80 percent of those voting in that referendum voted against the proposal, a major defeat for Whitmire, who had endorsed the idea.
When he lost to Whitmire, Welch said he had lost “the instinct to fight in the rough and tumble that campaigns have become.”
Even Welch’s political opponents acknowledged that his sense of humor was a redeeming virtue. “I have taken my job very, very seriously,” he once said, “but I have tried not to take myself seriously.”
Another quip dealt with problems arising from political appointees.
“When I was elected mayor I spent the better part of my first term weeding out the political appointees I had inherited from my predecessor,” he said. “Virtually all my second term (I spent) weeding out my own political appointees.”
Welch’s perseverance, zeal to excel, love of hard work and dedication to traditional moral standards reflected his small-town origins.
He was, in common with many of Houston’s leaders over the years, a small-town boy who moved to the city. Welch was born Dec. 9, 1918, in Lockney, a small town east of Plainview in the South Plains of West Texas. Shortly thereafter, his family moved to Slaton, a more populous place near Lubbock.
When Welch was a young boy, his father, Gilford Welch, worked as an automobile mechanic. In later years, the elder Welch was service manager at a local automobile dealership.
Lasting impression
Welch’s mother, Nora, taught a Bible class in the family’s church. Her example evidently made a lasting impression on her son. Louie Welch was for more than 35 years a member of the Garden Oaks Church of Christ. He quoted frequently from the Bible, and was qualified as a minister. He officiated at the weddings of three of his children.As a boy, Welch sold magazines — the Saturday Evening Post, the Ladies Home Journal and Country Gentleman. Later, he picked up milk from dairy farms and delivered it to a local dairy. He also sold popcorn — a nickel a bag — to passers-by.
His activities in high school — debating and election as president of the senior class — foreshadowed his later interest in politics. He also managed the school’s football team, a job that entailed washing the players’ uniforms after each game.
Welch attended Abilene Christian College (now a university), graduating in 1940 with high honors in history. At Abilene Christian, Welch met his future wife, Iola Faye Cure. They were married on Dec. 17, 1940.
After graduating, the Welches moved to Dallas where their first children, twins Guy and Gary, were born in 1942.
“I would like for him to be remembered,” Gary Welch said, “as a mayor who cared deeply about the city of Houston and each and every person who lived in the city of Houston.”
Their other children are Gil, Shannon and Tina. In 1955, another daughter, Lisa Meredith, died of cancer at the age of two.
In the mid-1940s the Welches moved to Houston, where Welch went into the auto parts business, eventually becoming a partner in four stores on the city’s North Side. Later, Welch became involved in real estate and investments, working as a broker before, after and occasionally during his stints as a city officeholder. In 1949, encouraged by fellow members of a North Side Lions Club, Welch ran for Houston City Council. Surprisingly, he won.
Welch also served as president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in 1972-73 and as vice president of the National League of Cities from 1970 until 1973.
Iola Welch died in 1991. Louie Welch is survived by his second wife, Helen.
Funeral arrangements were still pending Sunday with George H. Lewis & Sons.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/deaths/5489747.html
Chronicle reporter Dale Lezon contributed to this story.
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GORDON B. HINCKLEY, MORMON CHURCH LEADER
By Tara Dooley
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Hinckley’s successor will be chosen from the 14 men in the upper-most ranks of Mormon hierarchy — the two advisers to the president, called the First Presidency, and The Quorum of the 12 Apostles. If church tradition continues, the man who has served in the leadership the longest, Thomas S. Monson, will take over as church president. Monson, 80, joined the Quorum in 1963 and the First Presidency in 1985.
‘Very powerful role’
Ordained president in 1995 at 84, Hinckley was a church official throughout his career. He was a counselor to three church presidents.”He played a very powerful role in the history of Mormons in the last quarter of a century,” said Jan Shipps, author of Sojourner in the Promised Land: 40 Years among the Mormons. “He … led the church from his position in the First Presidency for years before he actually became president.”
In the decades Hinckley served in the church leadership, membership grew from about 2 million to 12.2 million. In that time the church also expanded from its center in Utah and the American West to become a faith with more than half of its adherents living outside the United States.
In his 12-plus years as president, church membership increased from 9.1 million to more than 12 million today.
In many ways, Hinckley also introduced Mormons to the general American public. He was considered the architect in the 1930s of the church’s now formidable public relations department.
Espousing a theology of family, honesty, optimism and civility and down-playing the parts of Mormon theology that departed from the Christian mainstream, Hinckley made himself more available to the media than presidents before him, Shipps said. He granted interviews to CNN’s Larry King, 60 Minutes‘ Mike Wallace and others.
In 2002 as the world focused on the athletes at the Winter Olympics, Salt Lake City and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints shone in the background.
“He (was) a communicator,” said Harold E. DeLaMare, who served as the first president of the Houston Temple until 2003. “He tried to bring understanding to other people outside our faith about what we believe. He had the ability to do it in short order and very clearly.”
Substantial growth
As president, Hinckley oversaw a vast construction of temples, where Mormons perform sacred rituals. The number of temples worldwide jumped from 47 in 1995 to more than 120 today. Hinckley traveled the globe dedicating temples in countries including Colombia, Mexico and Japan. In 2000, he dedicated the Houston Temple in Spring. The fourth Texas temple opened in 2005 in San Antonio.”He has truly led the movement to build these holy houses of the Lord,” said DeLaMare, who participated in the Houston opening ceremony with Hinckley.
Some temple practices, including certain marriage and baptism ceremonies, cannot be performed elsewhere, not even in the meeting houses where Mormons gather weekly. So the new temples also serve as encouragement for the faithful to remain involved in the particular rituals of the church, observers said.
In addition, Hinckley encouraged the faithful to study the Book of Mormon, said Shipps, professor emeritus of history and religious studies at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis. For Mormons, The Book of Mormon is considered “Another Testament of Jesus Christ.” It is not recognized by other Christians.
“With those two things he has preserved Mormon identity even as he allowed the church to enter the mainstream,” Shipps said.
GORDON B. HINCKLEY
• Born: June 23, 1910 in Salt Lake City• Education: University of Utah
• Mormon missionary: 1933-35 in Great Britain
• Church leadership: Joined church as an employee in the Church Radio, Publicity, and Mission Literature Committee in 1935 and held various positions in church leadership, most of them as part of the committee; elected to Quorum of the Twelve in 1961; named to First Presidency as a counselor in 1981; elected president in 1995.
• Church growth: During Hinckley’s presidency, the number of Mormon temples worldwide grew from 47 to more than 120 and membership increased from 9.1 million to 12.2 million.
• Died: Jan. 27, 2008
Mormon milestones
Key dates in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:• 1805: Joseph Smith, founder, born Dec. 23 in Sharon, Vt.
• 1827: Smith is said to have translated the Book of Mormon from gold plates he discovered with help from the angel Moroni.
• 1830: Smith and five others organize the church on April 6 in Fayette, N.Y.
• 1839: Smith and Latter-day Saints pioneers, escaping persecution, found the city Nauvoo, Ill.
• 1844: Smith killed by mob while imprisoned in Illinois jail in June.
• 1847: Brigham Young, the second president of the church, arrives with 149 others in what will become Salt Lake City.
• 1877: Young dies.
• 1890: Church ends polygamy practice.
• 1893: Salt Lake Temple dedicated after about 40 years of construction.
• 1947: Church membership reaches 1 million.
• 1978: Leadership positions extended to include black males, reversing previous policy.
• 1995: Gordon B. Hinckley becomes 15th president at age 84.
• 1997: Church membership reaches 10 million.
• 2002: Winter Olympics held in Salt Lake City.
Source: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/deaths/5490149.html
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JEAN ASTON’S KNITTING KEPT BABIES, TROOPS WARM
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Norwood said her mother spent her life creating things, from clothes for her children to a wool-braided rug she dyed herself. During the last several years, Aston’s hands were seemingly always busy.
“She just did it during any spare minute she had,” her daughter said. “She was so fast, and she could turn out so many in a short period of time.”
But she did not make the items for recognition. Her name was nowhere to be found in the care packages filled with tan, green or camouflage beanies. She also made smaller ones that were distributed to Iraqi children.
The parents of premature infants at Memorial Hermann and other hospitals never knew who knitted the tiny blankets, booties and caps. She would hand over bagloads to hospital staff members and simply say, “Here’s another bag.”
Aston studied home economics at Texas Christian University after she graduated from Lamar High School in 1944. While at TCU, she met her husband, Jake W. Aston, a Navy Corpsman who served in World War II. They married in 1948.
She did not formally teach, but she often passed along the secrets of her crafts to others, including her grandchildren, church groups and members of the Houston Embroiderers’ Guild, her daughter said.
“It’s so incredible to me that someone who has those talents used them in so many ways to bless so many people’s lives,” Norwood said. “From the tiniest of little babies, some of whom I assume didn’t make it, to those soldiers and Marines in Iraq.”
Besides her daughter and husband, survivors include sons Ron Aston, of Jersey Village, and Randy Aston, of Scottsdale, Ariz.
A service was scheduled for 1:30 p.m. today at Bethany Christian Church, 3223 Westheimer Road.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/deaths/5500505.html
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JAMES B. COFFMAN, OIL EXEC, PROVIDED AID TO ORGAN RECIPIENTS
Oil executive organized coalition to provide free flights to hospitals
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Coffman was chairman of the group, called Oil Industry Lifesaving Flights (OIL). It disbanded in the late 1980s, when transplants were being more widely performed.
Shortly after the organization was founded, President Ronald Reagan sent a letter praising the program as being “representative of private sector initiatives which I encourage.”
Coffman’s alma mater, the University of Nebraska, presented him with an Alumni Achievement Award for his leadership in the flight service.
James Bruce Coffman was born on July 15, 1925, in Cheyenne, Wyo., the son of James Herman Coffman and Dora Margaretta Balzer Coffman. He graduated from high school in Torrington, Wyo.
Coffman attended the University of Wyoming before joining the Army Air Corps during World War II. After the war, he worked his way through the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, earning a degree in geology, with honors, in 1950.
At the university, Coffman, a baritone, earned $35 a night teaming with his friend, Johnny Carson, who later became famous as the longtime host of TV’s Tonight show. In their act, Coffman sang and Carson performed magic tricks, said Coffman’s daughter, Anne Davee of College Station.
Coffman was associated for decades with what is now Exxon Mobil Corp., rising to the post of vice president and director of Exxon Production Research Co. He retired in 1981 to join Aminoil, and he later formed J.B. Coffman & Associates, a petroleum consulting and investment company.
In addition to Davee, survivors include his wife, Josephine “Pepi” Votava Coffman of Houston; two other daughters, Jody Gougler of College Station, and Liz Peel of Houston; and a son, Bruce Coffman of Houston.
Visitation is scheduled for 2 p.m. today at St. John Vianney Catholic Church, 625 Nottingham Oaks Trail. A memorial service will follow at 2:30 p.m. at the church.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/deaths/5492913.html
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ARCHBISHOP CHRISTODOULOS, LEADER OF GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH
Archbishop Christodoulos, who eased centuries of tension with the Vatican, was 69
Associated Press
Greek authorities announced three days of national mourning. Across the country flags flew at half-staff, including atop the ancient Acropolis and on the parliament building. The archbishop’s body will lie in state until the funeral, which will likely be held on Thursday, church officials and local authorities said.
Christodoulos was elected church leader in 1998 and is credited with reinvigorating the vast institution that represents 97 percent of Greece’s native born population.
He was one of several leaders of national Orthodox churches across the world. Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I is the spiritual leader of the world’s 250 million Orthodox Christians.
Christodoulos helped create church Web sites and radio stations, and frequently issued detailed checklists on how black-clad Orthodox priests should conduct themselves in public.
In 2001, Christodoulos received the late John Paul II — the first pope to visit Greece in nearly 1,300 years. They held the landmark meeting in Athens despite vigorous protests from Orthodox zealots.
The archbishop followed up in 2006 with an historic visit to the Vatican, where he and Pope Benedict XVI signed a joint declaration calling for inter-religious dialogue and stating opposition to abortion and euthanasia.
Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis paid tribute to the bravery the archbishop showed during his sickness in a statement released today. Describing him as an “enlightened” cleric, Karamanlis praised Christodoulos as a “religious leader who reinforced the role of Orthodoxy in the world,” and for bringing the church closer to the public.
Christodoulos was born Christos Paraskevaidis in 1939 in the northeastern Greek city of Xanthi, one of two sons of a wholesale food importer and devoutly religious mother.
He grew up in Athens where was drawn to the priesthood from a young age. He was ordained at 22, and obtained degrees in law and theology from the University of Athens. His skills were soon spotted by members of the church hierarchy.
He was appointed secretary to the Church’s governing Holy Synod during the 1967-74 military dictatorship. The coup leaders had installed their own church leadership under the late Archbishop Ieronymos to help realize their strictly conservative social agenda.
In a television interview years later, Christodoulos famously asserted he had been unaware of widespread abuses carried out during the dictatorship because of his demanding religious studies.
After the junta collapsed, he was elected metropolitan bishop of a diocese based in the central city of Volos, where he remained until he was elected archbishop on April 28, 1998.
Church elders turned to Christodoulos in the hopes that he could remedy years of administrative disorder under the leadership of the long-ailing Archbishop Seraphim, who had rarely appeared in public in the years leading up to his death in 1998.
In contrast to his predecessor, Christodoulos appeared on television daily, touring schools and churches, and watched his approval rating rise to 75 percent in opinion polls. He frequently weighed in on a variety of issues — in equal measure delighting the religious right and infuriating liberal and left-wing opponents.
In one of his most vociferous campaigns, Christodoulos led a petition drive against the introduction of new state identity cards that would end the practice of listing the bearer’s religion. The church gathered some 3 million signatures, more than a quarter of the population.
“They are trying to take away our society’s Christian and Orthodox identity, using various groundless arguments, because they hate God and want to marginalize the church,” Christodoulos had said during the dispute, claiming he was fighting the “forces of evil.”
The campaign ultimately failed, and Greeks’ identity cards dropped the religion entry.
He was regularly named Greece’s most popular public figure in opinion polls, but his abrasive tactics also made him enemies in the church and the media, who openly called for his resignation when several senior clerics were accused of embezzling funds, involvement in sexual scandals, and even trial-fixing in 2005.
Christodoulos publicly apologized for failing to contain the scandal and defeated a no-confidence motion in the Holy Synod by 67-1 votes.
During his tenure, the leader also drew criticism from politicians who accused him of meddling in their affairs, angered by his vocal opposition to everything from homosexuality and globalization to Turkey’s efforts to join the European Union.
“Clergymen are above kings, prime ministers and presidents,” Christodoulos once said.
He lashed out at liberals, accusing them of trying to water down Greece’s strong Orthodox heritage. He proposed a Greek alternative to Valentine’s Day and urged his supporters to buy Christmas cards with religious icons instead of Santa Claus and Christmas trees.
But public criticism of the church leader quickly faded after news of Christodoulos’ illness spread, and prominent left-wingers visited him in the hospital.
It is unclear who will succeed Christodoulos as head of Greece’s Orthodox Church. A meeting of the Holy Synod, the church’s top decision-making body, was called for this afternoon. A decision on when elections will be held to chose a successor must be made within 20 days, Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Zakinthos said on Greek television.
Christodoulos is survived by one brother. Funeral arrangements were to be determined at the meeting of the Holy Synod today.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/deaths/5490178.html
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Associated Press writer Elena Becatoros contributed to this report.
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EARL BUTZ, FORMER SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE
Mr. Butz had been in poor health recently and died during a family visit at his son’s home in Washington, said Randy Woodson, dean of the College of Agriculture at Purdue.
Mr. Butz, a farm economist and free-market advocate, had a relaxed and earthy style that won him acclaim as an after-dinner speaker but caused problems in his public life. Controversy began swirling around him after President Nixon appointed him secretary of agriculture in 1971. He figured in public disputes on issues like foreign grain sales and high meat prices.
Mr. Butz was forced to resign in October 1976 after telling a joke that was derogatory to blacks. The slur was overheard by John W. Dean III, the White House counsel to Nixon who was jailed in the Watergate scandal, and Mr. Dean’s report on it was published in Rolling Stone magazine.
Two years earlier, Mr. Butz apologized to the Vatican after criticizing the Roman Catholic Church’s stand on birth control by using a mock Italian accent while referring to the pope.
“Let’s be honest, I’m controversial,” he said at the time. “I don’t hesitate to speak my mind.”
Earl Lauer Butz was raised on a 160-acre livestock farm in northeastern Indiana. He earned Purdue’s first doctorate in agricultural economics, and later joined the school’s agricultural economics faculty, eventually becoming head of the department.
Mr. Butz was assistant secretary of agriculture from 1954 to 1957, during the Eisenhower administration. He then returned to Purdue and was dean of the School of Agriculture for the next 10 years.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/washington/03butz.html?ref=obituaries
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February 3, 2008 at 10:00+00:00Feb
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