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Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.
Henry Cabot Lodge II
United States Senator
from Massachusetts

In office
January 3, 1937 – February 3, 1944
Preceded by Marcus A. Coolidge
Succeeded by C. Sinclair Weeks

In office
January 3, 1947 – January 3, 1953
Preceded by David I. Walsh
Succeeded by John F. Kennedy
3rd Ambassador to the United Nations

In office
January 12, 1953 – September 2, 1960
President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Preceded by Warren R. Austin
Succeeded by James J. Wadsworth
Ambassador to South Vietnam

In office
1963–1964
President John F. Kennedy
Lyndon B. Johnson
Preceded by Frederick E. Nolting, Jr.
Succeeded by Maxwell D. Taylor

In office
1965–1967
President Lyndon B. Johnson
Preceded by Maxwell D. Taylor
Succeeded by Ellsworth Bunker
Ambassador to West Germany

In office
1968–1969
President Lyndon B. Johnson
Preceded by George C. McGhee
Succeeded by Kenneth Rush
Personal details
Born (1902-07-05)July 5, 1902
Nahant, Massachusetts
Died February 27, 1985(1985-02-27) (aged 82)
Beverly, Massachusetts
Nationality American
Political party Republican
Spouse(s) Emily Esther Sears (m. 1926)
Children George Cabot Lodge II
Henry Sears Lodge
Parents George Cabot Lodge
Mathilda Elizabeth Frelinghuysen Davis
Alma mater Harvard University (1924)
Religion Episcopalian
Military service
Service/branch United States Army
Rank Lieutenant Colonel
Battles/wars World War II

Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. (July 5, 1902 – February 27, 1985), sometimes referred to as Henry Cabot Lodge II,[1] was a Republican United States Senator from Massachusetts and a to the United Nations, South Vietnam, West Germany, and the Holy See (as Representative). He was the Republican nominee for in the 1960 Presidential election.

Early life[]

Lodge was born in Nahant, Massachusetts. His father was George Cabot Lodge, a poet, through whom he was a grandson of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and great-great-great-grandson of Senator George Cabot. His mother was Mathilda Elizabeth Frelinghuysen Davis. He had two siblings: John Davis Lodge (1903–1985), also a politician, and Helena Lodge de Streel (b. 1905).[2][3]

Lodge attended St. Albans School and graduated from Middlesex School. In 1924, he graduated cum laude from Harvard University, where he was a member of the Hasty Pudding and the Fox Club.[4]

Career[]

Lodge worked in the newspaper business, before being elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1933.

Senator[]

In November 1936, Lodge was elected to the United States Senate as a Republican. He defeated James Michael Curley in an open Senate contest.

World War II[]

Lodge served with distinction during the war, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. During the war he saw two tours of duty: The first in 1942, while also serving as a U.S. Senator, and the second in 1944–5 after resigning from the Senate.

The first period was a continuation of Lodge's longtime service as an Army Reserve Officer. Lodge was a major in the 1st Armored Division. That tour ended in July 1942, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered congressmen serving in the military to resign one of the two positions, and Lodge, who chose to remain in the Senate, was ordered by Secretary of War Henry Stimson to return to Washington.[5]

After returning to Washington and winning re-election in November 1942, Lodge went to observe allied troops serving in Egypt and Libya,[6] and in that position was on hand for the British retreat from Tobruk.[5]

Lodge served the first year of his new Senate term, but then resigned his Senate seat on February 3, 1944 in order to return to active duty,[7] the first U.S. Senator to do so since the Civil War[8] He saw action in Italy and France. Promoted to lieutenant colonel, in the fall of 1944 Lodge single-handedly captured a four-man German patrol.[9] By March 1945 he was decorated with the French Legion of Honor and Croix de Guerre with palm.[10] His American decorations included the Legion of Merit and the Bronze Star Medal. At the end of the war in 1945 he served as a liaison and interpreter to U.S. Sixth Army Group commander General Jacob Devers in Devers' surrender negotiations with the German forces in western Austria.

After the war Lodge returned to Massachusetts and resumed his political career. He continued his status as an Army Reserve officer and rose to the rank of major general.

Return to Senate and the drafting of Eisenhower[]

In 1946 Lodge defeated Democratic Senator David I. Walsh and returned to the U.S. Senate. He soon emerged as a spokesman for the moderate, internationalist wing of the Republican Party. In late 1951, Lodge helped persuade General Dwight D. Eisenhower to run for the Republican presidential nomination. When Eisenhower finally consented, Lodge served as his campaign manager and played a key role in helping Eisenhower to win the nomination over Senator Robert Taft of Ohio, the candidate of the party's conservative faction.

In fall 1952, Lodge found himself fighting in a tight race for re-election with John F. Kennedy, then a representative from Massachusetts. Due to his efforts in helping Eisenhower, Lodge had neglected his own Senate campaign. In addition, some of Taft's supporters in Massachusetts were angered when Lodge supported Eisenhower, and they defected to Kennedy's campaign.[11] In November 1952 Lodge was defeated by Kennedy, Lodge received 48.5% of the vote to Kennedy's 51.5%. This was neither the first nor the last time a Lodge faced a Kennedy in a Massachusetts election: in 1916 Henry Cabot Lodge had defeated Kennedy's grandfather John F. Fitzgerald for the same Senate seat, and Lodge's son, George, was defeated in his bid for the seat by Kennedy's brother Ted in the 1962 election for John F. Kennedy's unexpired term.

Ambassador to United Nations[]

Lodge was named U.S. ambassador to the United Nations by President Eisenhower in February 1953, with his office elevated to Cabinet level rank. In contrast to his grandfather (who had been a principal opponent of the UN's predecessor, the League of Nations), Lodge was supportive of the UN as an institution for promoting peace. As he famously said about it, "This organization is created to prevent you from going to hell. It isn't created to take you to heaven." [12] Since that time, no one has even approached his record of seven years as ambassador to the UN. During his time as UN Ambassador, Lodge supported the Cold War policies of the Eisenhower Administration, and often engaged in debates with the UN representatives of the Soviet Union. During the CIA sponsored overthrowing of the legitimate Guatemalan Government, when Britain and France became concerned about the US being involved in the aggression, Lodge (as US Ambassador to the United Nations) threatened to withdraw US support to Great Britain on Egypt and Cyprus and France on Tunisia and Morocco unless they failed to back the US in their action.[13] When the Government was overthrown, The United Fruit Company re-established itself in Guatemala. These episodes tainted an otherwise distinguished career and painted Lodge as a face of US Imperialism and exceptionalism.

In 1959, he escorted Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev on a highly publicized tour of the United States.

1960 Vice Presidential campaign[]

Lodge left the ambassadorship during the election of 1960 to run for on the Republican ticket headed by Richard Nixon. Before choosing Lodge, Nixon had also considered Philip Willkie of Indiana, son of Wendell L. Willkie, U.S. Representative Gerald Ford, of Michigan, and U.S. Senator Thruston B. Morton of Kentucky. Nixon and Lodge lost the election to Lodge's old foe, Kennedy, in a razor-thin vote. Nixon finally settled on Lodge in the mistaken hope that Lodge's presence on the ticket would force Kennedy to divert time and resources to securing his Massachusetts base, but Kennedy won his home state handily. Nixon also felt that the name Lodge had made for himself in the United Nations as a foreign-policy expert would prove useful against the relatively inexperienced Kennedy. The choice of Lodge proved to be controversial, as some conservative Republicans charged that Lodge had cost the ticket votes, particularly in the South, by his pledge (made without Nixon's approval) that if elected, Nixon would name at least one African American to a cabinet post.[citation needed]

Cabotlodgekennedymeeting1961

President John F. Kennedy meets with Director General of the Atlantic Institute, Henry Cabot Lodge, in the Oval Office, White House, Washington, D.C., 1961.

Between 1961 and 1962, Lodge was the first director-general of the Atlantic Institute.[14]

Ambassador to South Vietnam[]

Kennedy appointed Lodge to the position of Ambassador to South Vietnam, which he held from 1963 to 1964. The new ambassador quickly determined that Ngo Dinh Diem, President of the Republic of Vietnam, was both inept and corrupt, and that South Vietnam was headed for disaster unless Diem either reformed his administration or was replaced.[15] While the coup toppled the Diem government, it sparked a rapid succession of leaders in Vietnam, each unable to rally and unify their people, and each in turn overthrown by someone new. Removal of Diem caused more political instability in the South, since no strong, centralized and permanent government was in place to govern the nation, not to mention an increase in Viet Cong infiltration into the Southern populace and more attacks in the South. After supporting the coup of President Diem, Lodge then realized that the situation in the region deteriorated, and he suggested to the State Department that South Vietnam be made to relinquish its independence, and it be made a protectorate of the United States (like the former status of the Philippines) so as to bring governmental stability. The alternatives, he warned, were either increased military involvement by the U.S., or else total abandonment of South Vietnam by America.[16]

"Walking for President"[]

1964RepublicanPresidentialPrimaries

Republican primaries results by state

  No primary held
  John W. Byrnes
  Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.

  James A. Rhodes
  Nelson Rockefeller
  William W. Scranton

Lodge won three primaries as a "write-in" candidate without making any public appearances

In 1964, Lodge, while still Ambassador to South Vietnam, was the surprise write-in victor in the Republican New Hampshire primary, defeating declared presidential candidates Barry Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller.[17] His entire campaign was organized by a small band of political amateurs working independently of the ambassador, who, believing they had little hope of winning him any delegates, did nothing to aid their efforts. But when they scored the New Hampshire upset, Lodge, along with the press and Republican party leaders, suddenly began to seriously consider his candidacy. Many observers remarked on the situation's similarity to 1952, when Eisenhower had unexpectedly defeated Senator Robert A. Taft, then leader of the Republican Party's conservative faction. However, Lodge (who refused to become an open candidate) did not fare as well in later primaries, and Goldwater ultimately won the presidential nomination.

Later career[]

He was re-appointed ambassador to South Vietnam by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, and served thereafter as Ambassador at Large (1967–1968) and Ambassador to West Germany (1968–1969). In 1969, he was appointed by President Richard Nixon to serve as head of the American delegation at the Paris peace negotiations, and he served occasionally as envoy to the Holy See from 1970 to 1977.[18]

Personal life[]

Cabotlodgefam

Henry Cabot Lodge and family

In 1926, Lodge married Emily Esther Sears. They had two children: George Cabot Lodge II (b. 1927) and Henry Sears Lodge (b. 1930).[19]

In 1966 he was elected an honorary member of the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati.[20]

Lodge died in 1985 and was interred in the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[21]

See also[]

  • List of United States political appointments that crossed party lines

References[]

  1. The Kennedys: End of a Dynasty. Life magazine. 2009. 
  2. "LODGE, John Davis, (1903–1985)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=L000395. Retrieved July 29, 2011. 
  3. "Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. Photographs II". The Massachusetts Historical Society. MHS. http://www.masshist.org/findingaids/doc.cfm?fa=fap039. Retrieved 24 December 2011. 
  4. Gale, Mary Ellen (1960-11-04). "Lodge at Harvard: Loyal Conservation 'Who Knew Just What He Wanted to Do'". The Harvard Crimson. http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=244478. Retrieved 2007-10-30. 
  5. 5.0 5.1 "For Services Rendered," Time Magazine, 1942-07-20.
  6. "Into the Funnel," Time Magazine, 1942-07-42.
  7. "Lodge in the Field," Time Magazine, 1944-02-14.
  8. http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=l000394
  9. "People," Time Magazine, 1944-10-09.
  10. "Reservations," Time Magazine, 1945-03-19.
  11. Whalen, Thomas J. (2000). Kennedy versus Lodge: The 1952 Massachusetts Senate Race. Boston, Mass.: Northeastern University Press. ISBN 978-1-55553-462-2. 
  12. Bartleby, Simpson’s Contemporary Quotations, compiled by James B. Simpson, 1988, news summaries January 28, 1954
  13. ["Great Britain's Latin American Dilemma: The Foreign Office and the Overthrow of 'Communist Guatamala, June 1954" by John W Young, page 584]
  14. Melvin Small (1998-06-01). "The Atlantic Council--The Early Years". NATO. http://www.nato.int/acad/fellow/96-98/small.pdf. 
  15. "Interview with Henry Cabot Lodge". Open Vault, WGBH Media Library and Archives. 1979. http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/vietnam-b93dd4-interview-with-henry-cabot-lodge-1979-part-1-of-5. 
  16. Moyar, Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954–1965 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 273.
  17. Union-Leader: Lodge's write-in victory
  18. Petillo, Carol Morris. "Lodge, Henry Cabot". American National Biography Online. 
  19. MHS Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. Photographs II
  20. Roster of the Society of the Cincinnati. 1974 edition. pg. 17.
  21. Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. at Find a Grave

External links[]

United States Senate
Preceded by
Marcus A. Coolidge
Senator from Massachusetts (Class 2)
1937–1944
Served alongside: David I. Walsh
Succeeded by
Sinclair Weeks
Preceded by
David I. Walsh
Senator from Massachusetts (Class 1)
1947–1953
Served alongside: Leverett Saltonstall
Succeeded by
John F. Kennedy
Party political offices
Preceded by
Richard M. Nixon
Republican vice presidential nominee
1960
Succeeded by
William E. Miller
Diplomatic posts
Preceded by
Warren R. Austin
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
1953–1960
Succeeded by
James J. Wadsworth
Preceded by
Frederick Nolting
U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam
1963–1964
Succeeded by
Maxwell D. Taylor
Preceded by
Maxwell D. Taylor
U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam
1965–1967
Succeeded by
Ellsworth Bunker
Preceded by
George C. McGhee
U.S. Ambassador to West Germany
1968–1969
Succeeded by
Kenneth Rush
Awards and achievements
Preceded by
John Foster Dulles
Sylvanus Thayer Award recipient
1960
Succeeded by
Dwight D. Eisenhower
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