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Nicholas Katzenbach will present ‘Reflections on Race and Government’
Former United States Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach will give the lecture “Reflections on Race and Government” 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 15 in Kirby Hall of Civil Rights, room 104. The lecture, which is hosted by the President’s Office, is free and open to the public.
Katzenbach was appointed the 65th Attorney General of the United States by President Lyndon B. Johnson and held the position from 1965-1966.
As an assistant attorney general in the Kennedy Justice Department, Katzenbach played a role in drafting bills to establish the Communications Satellite Corporation, to support the Kennedy administration’s foreign-trade program, and to create new wire-tapping and conflict of interest legislation. In Oct. 1962, President Kennedy asked him to draw up a legal brief in support of the President’s decision to blockade Cuba. Two months later, Katzenbach was part of the group that negotiated the release of Cuban-exile prisoners captured by Castro’s forces during the Bay of Pigs invasion.
Katzenbach played a key role in the desegregation of Southern universities and was present during the 1962 riots at the University of Mississippi following the enrollment of James Meredith. He was appointed deputy attorney general in 1963 and personally escorted James Hood and Vivian Malone onto the campus of the University of Alabama. During the Johnson administration, Katzenbach worked closely with the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of President Kennedy. He concluded his career in public service as undersecretary of state in 1969.
Born in Philadelphia in 1922, Katzenbach graduated from the Phillips Exeter Academy and served as a first lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force during World War II. He was held as a prisoner of war in Italy from 1943-1945.
Katzenbach graduated from Princeton University with a B.A. in 1945 and received his LL.B. from Yale University in 1947, where he served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Law Journal. Katzenbach attended Balliol College at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar from 1947-1949.
From 1950–1952, Katzenbach worked in the Office of General Counsel for the U.S. Air Force. He went on to serve as an associate professor of law at Yale University for four years and a professor of law at the University of Chicago for four years. He also became a corporate attorney with IBM and worked with a private law firm until his retirement in 1991.