
Henry Lewis Stimson
Former United States Secretary of State
Education
- Graduated - attended Harvard Law School
- law - Root and Clark
Overview
Henry Lewis Stimson was an American statesman, lawyer, and Republican Party politician. Over his long career, he emerged as a leading figure in U.S. foreign policy by serving in both Republican and Democratic administrations. He served as Secretary of War (1911–1913) under President William Howard Taft, Secretary of State (1929–1933) under President Herbert Hoover, and again Secretary of War (1940–1945) under Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, overseeing American military efforts during World War II.
The son of the surgeon Lewis Atterbury Stimson, Stimson became a Wall Street lawyer after graduating from Harvard Law School. He served as a United States Attorney under President Theodore Roosevelt and prosecuted several antitrust cases. After he was defeated in the 1910 New York gubernatorial election, Stimson served as Secretary of War under Taft. He continued the reorganization of the United States Army that had begun under his mentor, Elihu Root. After the outbreak of World War I, Stimson became part of the Preparedness Movement. He served as an artillery officer in France after the United States entered the war. From 1927 to 1929, he served as Governor-General of the Philippines under President Calvin Coolidge.
In 1929, President Hoover appointed Stimson as Secretary of State. Stimson sought to avoid a worldwide naval race and thus helped negotiate the London Naval Treaty. He protested the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, which instituted the Stimson Doctrine of nonrecognition of international territorial changes that are executed by force. After World War II broke out in Europe, Stimson accepted President Franklin Roosevelt's appointment to return as Secretary of War. After the U.S. entered the war, Stimson, working very closely with Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall, took charge of raising and training 13 million soldiers and airmen, supervised the spending of a third of the nation's GDP on the Army and the Air Forces, helped formulate military strategy, and oversaw the Manhattan Project to build the first atomic bombs. He supported the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. During and after the war, Stimson strongly opposed the Morgenthau Plan, which would have deindustrialized and partitioned Germany into several smaller states. He also insisted on judicial proceedings against Nazi war criminals, which led to the Nuremberg trials.
Stimson retired from office in September 1945 and died in 1950.
Secretary of State :
Stimson returned to the cabinet in 1929, when U.S. President Herbert Hoover appointed him US Secretary of State. Both served until 1933. Stimson lived in the Woodley Mansion in Washington, D.C., where he remained through 1946.
Shortly after being appointed as the new Secretary of State, Stimson shut down the Cipher Bureau (U.S. cryptanalytic service, later known as the "Black Chamber") in 1929. According to the NSA's Center for Cryptologic History, Stimson likely dissolved the bureau for budgetary reasons. But he also considered intercepting diplomatic communications unethical and famously commented, "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail."
In 1930 and 1931, Stimson was the Chairman of the U.S. delegation to the London Naval Conference of 1930. In the following year, he was the Chairman of the U.S. delegation to World Disarmament Conference in Geneva. The same year, the United States issued the "Stimson Doctrine" in response to Japanese invasion of Manchuria. It stated that the U.S. refused to recognize any situation or treaty that limited U.S. treaty rights or was brought about by aggression.
Returning to private life at the end of the Hoover administration, Stimson was an outspoken advocate of strong opposition to Japanese aggression.
Early Life
Henry Lewis Stimson was born September 21, 1867 in Manhattan, New York City, the son of Lewis Atterbury Stimson, a prominent surgeon, and his wife, the former Candace Thurber Wheeler. When he was nine, his mother died of kidney failure, and he was then sent to boarding school.
He spent summers with his grandmother Candace Wheeler at her Catskills country house and played with his uncle Dunham Wheeler, who was almost the same age, in "the Armory", which was their nickname for one corner of a large room in the house. Roaming the Catskill Mountains, he grew to love the outdoors and would become an avid sportsman.
He was educated at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, where he gained a lifelong interest in religion and a close relationship with the school. He later donated Woodley, his Washington, D.C. real estate, to the school in his will (the property is now the Maret School). He was an honorary lifetime member of Theodore Roosevelt's Boone and Crockett Club, North America's first wildlife conservation organization. He was a Phillips trustee from 1905 to 1947 and served as president of the board from 1935 to 1945. He then attended Yale College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He joined Skull and Bones, a secret society that afforded many contacts for the rest of his life. He graduated in 1888 and attended Harvard Law School, where he graduated in 1890. He joined the prestigious Wall Street law firm of Root and Clark in 1891 and became a partner in 1893. Elihu Root, a future Secretary of War and Secretary of State, became a major influence on and role model for Stimson.
In July 1893, Stimson married the former Mabel Wellington White, a great-great granddaughter of one of the Founding Fathers, Roger Sherman, and the sister of Elizabeth Selden Rogers. An adult case of mumps had left Stimson infertile, and they had no children.
In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Stimson U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, where Stimson made a distinguished record prosecuting antitrust cases. He later served from 1937 to 1939 as president of the New York City Bar Association, where a medal honoring service as a U.S. Attorney is still awarded in his honor.
Stimson was defeated as Republican candidate for Governor of New York in 1910.
He joined the Council on Foreign Relations at its inception and was described by The New York Times as "the group's quintessential member".
Stimson is an English surname, a variant of Stevenson.
Career
- United States - Former Secretary of State
Recognition
Distinguished Service Medal (U.S. Army)
World War I Victory Medal
American Legion Distinguished Service Medal