[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 62 (Tuesday, April 4, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5096-S5097]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


             CENTENNIAL OF THE BIRTH OF CHRISTIAN A. HERTER

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, March 28, 1995, marked the 100th 
anniversary of the birth of Christian A. Herter, one of Massachusetts' 
and the Nation's most respected leaders and public officials in this 
century.
  After a distinguished early career in the Foreign Service, Chris 
Herter returned to Massachusetts and was elected to the State 
legislature in 1930 at the age of 35. In the next 6 year, he rose to 
become speaker of the house, and 4 years later, he was elected to the 
House of Representatives, where he played an influential role in making 
the Marshall plan a reality.
  In 1952, the same year President Kennedy was elected to the U.S. 
Senate, Chris Herter was elected Governor of Massachusetts. After 
serving two terms, he accepted the position of Under Secretary of State 
under John Foster Dulles in the Eisenhower administration, and 
succeeded Dulles as Secretary of State in 1959. President Kennedy 
thought so highly of him that he appointed him to be U.S. Special Trade 
Representative in 1961, and the GATT Agreement still stands as one of 
his greatest monuments.
  Christian Herter was admired and respected by leaders and citizens 
alike in Massachusetts, America, and throughout the world. On this 
occasion of the centennial of his birth, Emanuel Goldberg, who served 
on his staff as Governor, has written an eloquent tribute to this 
extraordinary son of Massachusetts, and I ask unanimous consent that it 
may be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the tribute was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                       Centennial of Chris Herter

                         (By Emanuel Goldberg)

       He was one of the Commonwealth's most highly regarded and 
     distinguished public servants, on a tri-level of state, 
     national and international affairs, yet if you questioned 
     people today--senior citizens possibly excepted--I doubt if 
     one in 10 could lucidly recall Christian A. Herter of Millis 
     and Manchester.
       Last March 28, 1995 was the 100th anniversary of Chris 
     Herter's birth, actually in Paris where his artist parents 
     lived abroad. Twice he became not only a serious presidential 
     prospect when ``Dump Nixon'' drives were surfacing but, in 
     Massachusetts, served as Governor and Speaker of the House 
     and, in Washington, as an outstanding Congressman, Secretary 
     of State in the Eisenhower administration and the first U.S. 
     Trade Negotiator for both Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. 
     There is a state scholarship fund in his name--rarely 
     publicized because his family rejected a brick and mortar 
     memorial and preferred practical direct help to needy 
     students. Thanks to former MDC Commissioner John W. Sears, 
     there is also a public park, near Harvard Stadium (Herter's 
     alma mater), named for him. Also an academic chair in 
     international relations at Brandeis and Herter Hall at U. 
     Mass-Amherst.
       The 1952 gubernatorial election was memorable when underdog 
     Herter in a close election, defeated by 14,500 votes the 
     powerful Democratic incumbent Paul A. Dever. The major 
     campaign issue revolved about Dever's outgoing public works 
     commissioner, Bill Callahan, whose heralded highway program 
     was attacked by Republicans as the most costly in the nation, 
     as well as two and a half times more than the next highest 
     state.
       The Herter program for Massachusetts was highly and quickly 
     successful because in just one year after taking office, the 
     new administration got through most of its legislative 
     program and also a 25 percent tax reduction in earned income. 
     TIME put Herter on its magazine cover; also labeled him ``to 
     millions, a hero'' (1/18/54). That year he was the only U.S. 
     governor to produce such dramatic tax savings.
       In the late 1940's, while a Congressman, Herter chaired a 
     19-member delegation that toured 18 foreign countries to lay 
     the foundations for the Marshall Plan. He later won the 1948 
     Collier's Magazine award as the outstanding Congressman for 
     that historic undertaking. Ironically, then Congressman 
     Richard M. Nixon served on Herter's diligent and highly 
     productive committee. The generous Collier's prize money was 
     later donated by Herter to Washington's Johns Hopkins School 
     for Advanced International Studies, an institution he was a 
     prime mover in founding.
       The awkward 6' 5" angularity of Chris Herter caused his 
     military rejection in 1917 (he later suffered from severe 
     arthritis) but catapulted him at once into public service. He 
     served President Wilson at the Versailles Peace Conference, 
     in 1918-1919, as Secretary of the American Peace Commission. 
     Following an attache post in Germany's American Embassy, he 
     found himself, at age 22, operating the American legation in 
     Brussels.
       Thence commenced a close association with Herbert Hoover--
     Herter becoming at first the future President's principal 
     assistant as executive secretary of the Europe Relief Council 
     and later, when Hoover was named U.S. Secretary of Commerce 
     in 1921,
      his personal assistant.
       On a personal level, the jovial, modest Herter, who 
     frequently assuaged his arthritic back pain with bufferin and 
     a cigarette, nevertheless was a fisherman, boatsman, 
     gentleman farmer, breeder of golden retrievers and an expert 
     bridge player. He was one of the Boston Red Sox's greatest 
     fans and reveled in the Governor's prerogative of throwing 
     out the first baseball of the season. One scheduled April 
     opening day, when it actually snowed in Boston, causing the 
     game to be cancelled, this frustrated Governor intentionally 
     messed up a preplanned photo assignment by heaving a huge 
     snowball at (and hitting) this writer, who was supposedly 
     supervising a substitute news picture. My recollection is 
     that simultaneously a distinguished, newly-formed Educational 
     TV Commission was just entering the Governor's office--and 
     its VIP members were quite perplexed to encounter an 
     embarrassed, snow-covered young assistant and a hilariously-
     roaring chief executive.
       Actually, Herter was very considerate about his staff's 
     welfare. He was capable, even when busy, of phoning the 
     switchboard operator to inquire about her cold. On one 
     occasion, long after he'd left the Governor's office. Herter 
     traveled from Washington to help a former staff state 
     trooper, who'd encounterd some job difficulty in Boston.
       Testament to his wide popularity on both sides of the 
     political aisle, when the Undersecretary Chris Herter was 
     nominated by President Eisenhower to succeed John Foster 
     Dulles as U.S. Secretary of State, the Senate on April 21, 
     1959, approved the appointment in 4 hours and 13 minutes. The 
     Senate had suspended its usual confirmation rule of requiring 
     a minimum of seven days.
       Family-wise, Herter's father, Albert, an internationally 
     renowned artist, created the huge murals now hanging in the 
     Massachusetts House of Representatives. His older brother, 
     Everit, was killed by German shrapnel in World War I. He 
     married the former Mary Caroline Pratt, granddaughter of one 
     of Standard Oil's founders, for whom a memorial garden as 
     been affectionately dedicated in the MDC's Herter Park.
       Chris and ``Mac'' Herter had four children; Chirstian A. 
     Herter Jr., now teaching at the Hopkins School, who also once 
     served in the Massachusetts legislature; Dr. Frederic P. 
     Herter, a prominent physician at New York's Columbia-
     Presbyterian Hospital (medicine has also been a long family 
     tradition for an uncle, also named Christian Herter, founded 
     the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, while a 
     young student named Jonas Salk was helped through his 
     doctoral training via a Herter scholarship); E. Miles Herter 
     of Manchester, prominent for years in the Boston financial 
     community, and Mrs. Joseph (Adele) Seronde, wife of a 
     pathologist and a widely admired artist now residing in 
     Arizona. She, collaborating with Kathy Kane, was responsible 
     for bringing ``Summerthing'' to Boston and also originating 
     the outdoor murals that are now emulated throughout the 
     nation.
       Chris Herter, boots on at 71, was victim of a heart attack 
     on December 30, 1966, while still U.S. Trade Negotiator. 
     Ironically, a day before his passing, Herter, an ardent 
     proponent of free trade, was cheered by news that Britain was 
     lifting tariff restrictions among the European Free Trade 
     Association.
       Though William F. Buckley, Jr. and Chris Herter (a GOP 
     Young Turk type) were probably at opposite ends of the 
     Republican spectrum, I know of no-one who more precisely 
     summarized Herter's essence than this noted 
     [[Page S5097]] conservative. In a private letter, Bill 
     Buckley commented that Herter was ``a reminder of how 
     civilized the world used to be.''
       There is a gap: no scholar has yet written a definitive 
     biography about Chris Herter's multi-faceted contribution to 
     history and the public welfare. His gigantic stature, both in 
     size and character, will always remind us that moral and 
     intellectual integrity can flower even in American politics.
     

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