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GENE ZUCKERT, 1911-2000
Biography
Gene Zuckert died on June 5, 2000, after a long illness. He did far
more than lend his name to the firm. He gave it a spirit and sense of
purpose that endures. His considerable personal achievements aside, he was
as nice, and as amusing, a person as you would ever hope to meet.
Two subsequent articles in The New York Times go the core of the
man. The first, his obituary, was published on June 7.
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NEW YORK TIMES
June 7, 2000
Eugene Martin Zuckert, 88,
Air Force Secretary in Crises
by Wolfgang Saxon
Eugene M. Zuckert, the secretary of the Air Force during the Bay of
Pigs invasion, the Cuban missile crisis and the deepening American
involvement in Vietnam, died Monday in Washington. He was 88 and
lived in Chevy Chase, Md.
Mr. Zuckert's public service dated to 1937, the year he received his
law degree at Yale University. At the urging of one of his former
professors, the Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, he joined
the legal staff of the fledgling Securities and Exchange Commission.
From then on, his career easily meshed government service, academia
and the law. He taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Business
Administration, also serving as assistant dean.
He was the last survivor of the small team of key officials who
turned the Air Force into a separate branch of the Armed Services in
1947. He sat on the Atomic Energy Commission in the 1950's.
At his death he was of counsel to Zuckert, Scoutt & Rasenberger,
the Washington law firm he joined as a partner three years after it
was founded, and two years after he resigned from the Pentagon in
1965.
In the 1950's, his personal physician, Dr. William Walsh, told him
of his idea to put American medical staff on a ship to train Third
World doctors and nurses. Mr. Zuckert helped bring the idea to life
in 1958 with Project Hope, for which he was board chairman from 1967
to 1981.
A native New Yorker, Eugene Martin Zuckert graduated from Yale in
1933. He served as a lawyer in the S.E.C.'s Washington and New York
offices until 1940, when he went to Harvard to organize its wartime
training program for executives.
He enlisted in the Navy in 1944 and wound up as an assistant to
Stuart Symington, who was named the assistant secretary of war for
air in 1946 and the first secretary of the Air Force in 1947. As his
assistant for management until 1952, Mr. Zuckert instituted
cost-control practices and understudied the top post.
He oversaw the end of racial segregation in the service and helped
shape the Universal Code of Military Justice. From 1952 to 1954, he
was a member of the Atomic Energy Commission. He then practiced law, wrote about nuclear energy and business
management and served as a consultant and corporate director.
President John F. Kennedy named him secretary of the Air Force in
1961. His tenure was a difficult one. Mr. Zuckert was in the middle of the
debate about the problem-plagued F-111 fighter jet, which was
designed for the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force, but was used only
by the Air Force. By the time he resigned in 1965, Mr. Zuckert had served in the
secretary's post longer than anybody before him. The Air Force award
for outstanding management achievement is named in his honor.
He remained an active partner in Zuckert, Scoutt until 1988.
His first wife, Kathleen Barnes Zuckert, died in 1945; his second
wife, Barbara Jackman Zuckert, died in 1985. Mr. Zuckert is survived
by his wife Harriet Zimmerly Zuckert; three children, Adrienne Z.
Cowles of Connecticut, Robert B., of Hilo, Hawaii, and Gene Z. Farris
of Phoenix; and six grandchildren.
_____________________________________________
June 11, 2000, Sunday
Sports Desk
By MURRAY CHASS
BASEBALL: NOTEBOOK - Zuckert's Legacy
Eugene Zuckert, who was the secretary of the Air Force under
President Kennedy, died last Monday. No mention of baseball
appeared in his obituary because he had no connection to the
game. However, his name will live in baseball lore for the
association he did not have with the game.
When Major League Baseball owners set out to seek a new
commissioner in 1965 before the retirement of Ford Frick, John
Fetzer of Detroit and John Galbreath of Pittsburgh, co-chairmen
of the search committee, identified a man connected with the
military as a potentially good candidate. The man they were said
to have in mind was Zuckert, but somehow the owners wound up
interviewing -- and hiring -- William Eckert, an Air Force
general known as Spike.
Three years into his term, Eckert was forced to resign. Not only
did he lack knowledge about the game he was running, but he also
was a public relations disaster.
There has been some question about whether there was really a
Zuckert-Eckert mixup, but a former club owner recalled asking
Fetzer about the matter and said the Tigers owner ducked a
direct answer. He quoted Fetzer as saying, ''Well, that isn't
exactly right.'' But neither he nor Galbreath, the former owner
said, wanted to talk about it.
''There's enough anecdotal evidence,'' the former owner said.
''I believe it's true.''
* *
* *
For the record, the story is true. Gene had been interviewed by the
owners and had been offered the position of Commissioner. His
reasons for not accepting the offer had something to do with
enforcing the ban against the spitball, which, in Gene’s view, was
a proxy for the control issue. Major League Baseball’s loss was
our great gain.
Also for the record, Gene would have far preferred the Murray Chass
article to the obituary.
We miss him.
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