Biographical Sketches of the Interviewees
Virginia
Allan
Virginia Allan was a native of Michigan and was an
educator and businesswoman, whose interest in women's issues developed through
her work as President of the National Federation of Business and Professional
Women, where she initiated the idea of a national network of state commissions
on the status of women, based on her experience on Michigan's commission. In
1969, she was named chair of President Nixon's Task Force on Women's Rights and
Responsibilities. From that group came the report "A Matter of Simple Justice"
and from its recommendations grew the Women's Equality Act of 1971. In 1972,
she was named Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, where she
served in a variety of roles and was the liaison with non-governmental
organizations for the International Women's Year conference in Mexico City in
1975. She also attended world conferences in Copenhagen in 1980 and Nairobi in
1985. In 1983, she helped to inaugurate the United States Committee of the
United Nations Development Fund for Women, a non-profit organization created to
support projects to promote the political, economic, and social empowerment of
women around the world. She also served as Director of the Graduate School of
Women's Studies at George Washington University. In 1993, she retired and moved
to Florida. She died in Sarasota, August 8, 1999.
The Honorable Anne L.
Armstrong
Anne Legendre Armstrong was born in New Orleans and
graduated from Vassar College. After work as a journalist, she married Tobin
Armstrong, a Texas cattle rancher. In 1966, she became involved in the Texas
Republican Party and was elected Co-Chairman of the Republican National
Committee in 1971. She was the first woman to deliver a keynote address at the
Republican National Convention in 1972 and became a Counselor to the President
in 1972. There she served on the president's Domestic Council, the Council on
Wage and Price Stability, and the Commission on the Organization of Government
for the Conduct of Foreign Policy. In 1976 President Ford appointed her U.S.
Ambassador to Great Britain. She served as chairman of the President's Foreign
Intelligence Advisory Board from 1981 to 1990, and the Secretary of State's
Advisory Panel on Overseas Security. She is currently chairman of the Executive
Committee of the Board of Trustees at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies in Washington, D.C., as well as a member of the Texas A
and M University Board of Regents. She received the Presidential Medal of
Freedom from President Reagan in 1987.
The Honorable Catherine
May Bedell
Catherine Dean May was born in Yakima, Washington,
and graduated from the University of Washington in 1936 with a degree in
education. She later studied speech at the University of Southern California
and taught English before becoming involved in broadcasting. She was a writer
and assistant commentator with the National Broadcasting Co., New York City
1944-1946, and women's editor at station KIT, Yakima, Washington, 1948-1957.
She served as a member of the Washington State Legislature from 1952 to 1958;
and was later elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican,
serving six terms (1959-1971) before losing a bid for reelection in 1970. She
married Donald W. Bedell in November 1970. She was appointed by President
Richard Nixon to the United States International Trade Commission, and served
1971-1981, and also was appointed Special Consultant to the President on the 50
States Project, 1982. She has been president of her own firm, Bedell Associates
and is a resident of Palm Desert, Calif.
The Honorable Helen
Delich Bentley
Former U.S. Representative from Maryland
(1985-95), Helen Delich Bentley entered government service in the Nixon
administration as Chairman of the Federal Maritime Commission. Helen Bentley
grew up in the Nevada mining town of Ruth and attended the University of
Missouri School of Journalism. Graduating in 1944, she took a position with the
United Press, eventually landing in Baltimore as Maritime Editor for the
Baltimore Sun. In this position she covered all forms of transportation and its
labor relations activities. During this time she also produced local television
news programs in Baltimore and Philadelphia dealing with trade and the two
ports. In these she did profiles on more than 800 companies in the trade and
shipping businesses. After writing some pieces for the Nixon Campaign she was
recruited to be Chairman of the Federal Maritime Commission. She left office in
1975 to become a business consultant and, in 1984 was elected to Congress
representing Baltimore and Harford counties, Maryland. She was re-elected four
more times and, after 1995, returned to her international trade and business
consulting practice.
Charles L.
Clapp
Charles Clapp received his Ph.D. in political science from
the University of California at Berkeley. As the winner of one of five American
Political Science Awards given nationally to spend nine months in Washington
working for members of Congress, Charles Clapp had the experience of working
for Peter Frelinghuysen (R-NJ) in the House and John F. Kennedy (D-MA) in the
Senate. He then served as a special assistant on the Special Senate Committee
to Investigate Political Activities, Lobbying and Campaign Contributions, and
later on the staff of Representative Charles Chamberlain (R-MI). He then went
to the Brookings Institution where, in 1966, he published the study "The
Congressman: His Work as He Sees It." From there he joined the staff of Senator
Leverett Saltonstall (R-MA) where he served for five years until the Senator
retired. His next position was as Special Assistant to the Secretary (Head) of
the Smithsonian Institution. With the election of Richard M. Nixon in 1968,
Arthur Burns, counsel to the President at the time, invited him to come on his
staff as Special Assistant to the President, where he was responsible for the
17 Presidential task forces developed in the domestic area to provide
recommendations for programs. As a member of the Domestic Council staff, he was
named co-chair of the first White House Conference on Corrections. After
President Nixon's re-election, he was nominated and confirmed by the Senate as
a Commissioner of the Interstate Commerce Commission, where he served for eight
years. He later became Chief Administrative Officer and Secretary for the
Postal Rate Commission for 11 years.
Evelyn
Cunningham
Evelyn Cunningham studied journalism at Long Island
University and graduated in 1943. She secured a position with the
Pittsburgh Courier, then one of
America's leading newspapers serving the African-American community across the
nation. In her roles as New York City editor, she interviewed Martin Luther
King, Malcolm X, and many other prominent leaders, and she covered all of the
major civil rights events of the1950s and 1960s. She also produced and hosted
for five years a popular radio program on WLIB in New York called "At Home with
Evelyn Cunningham," which featured interviews with significant figures in the
African-American community in New York. Cunningham had campaigned for Nelson
Rockefeller and, in 1968, he offered her a position on his staff and she
accepted. After two years, as administrative assistant to Jackie Robinson, she
moved to the Women's Unit of state government. There, she was responsible for
liaison with women's organizations and mounted the first major conference in
New York government on women's issues. She was invited to become a member of
the Task Force on Women's Rights and Responsibilities in 1969 and later served
in several other positions in the White House. She is the founder of The
Coalition of 100 Black Women, and is an active supporter and participant in a
number of organizations dedicated to the arts in the African-American
community.
Julie Nixon
Eisenhower
Julie Nixon was born in 1948 in Washington, D.C. She
graduated from Smith College in 1970 and received a master's degree in
Elementary Education from Catholic University in 1971. She was active in both
of her father's presidential campaigns and during the Nixon administration, she
traveled across the country, representing the White House on behalf of
children's issues, the environment, and the elderly. She married David
Eisenhower on December 28, 1968. From 1973-75, Nixon Eisenhower served as
Assistant Managing Editor of the
Saturday Evening Post, and helped
establish a book division for Curtis Publishing Co., its parent corporation.
Since that time, she has written or edited five books, including
Pat Nixon: The Untold Story, a biography
of her mother. She has an extensive record of community service in the
Philadelphia area and is co-chair of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and
Birthplace Foundation.
The Honorable Barbara
Hackman Franklin
Barbara Franklin's role in the Nixon White
House from 1971 to 1973 is the keystone for advancing women into leadership
positions in government and also for this oral history project. After
graduation from Penn State in 1962, she became one of the first women to
receive an M.B.A. degree from the Harvard Business School in 1964. With
path-breaking experiences in business, she accepted a position as Staff
Assistant to President Richard M. Nixon in 1971 with the mission to recruit
talented women into leadership positions in the federal government. After great
success she was nominated and confirmed as Commissioner and Vice Chairman of
the newly established Consumer Product Safety Commission in 1973. After six
years of service, she returned to business, founding a consulting firm and
becoming a director on a number of corporate boards, a senior fellow of the
Wharton School of Business, and director of the Wharton Government and Business
Program at the University of Pennyslvania, and at various times as a member of
the President's Advisory Committee for Trade Policy Negotiations, as a U.S.
delegate to the United Nations General Assembly. In 1992-93, she served as the
29th Secretary of Commerce in the administration of President George H. W.
Bush. Returning to the private sector, she is now President and Chief Executive
Officer of Barbara Franklin Enterprises, a consulting and investment firm. She
is the recipient of numerous awards and honorary degrees, and the Distinguished
Alumni award from Penn State.
Vera
Glaser
A Washington correspondent and bureau chief since 1963,
Vera Glaser has written for the North American Newspaper Alliance, Knight
Ridder Newspapers, Maturity News Service, and most recently has been
contributing editor for
The Washingtonian magazine. She has been
a free-lance writer for a variety of magazines and a commentator on radio and
television. In 1970, she served as a member of President Nixon's Task Force on
Women's Rights and Responsibilities and has served as a public member of a
variety of USIA and Department of State advisory panels. She has been president
of the Washington Press Club, a governor of the National Press Club, and a
member of the board of the International Women's Media Foundation.
Judge Cynthia Holcomb
Hall
Judge Cynthia Holcomb Hall is a Los Angeles native and
attended undergraduate and law school at Stanford. She spent a year as an
undergraduate at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, and later took a
master's degree in tax law at New York University. She served as a law clerk to
a judge on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, before joining the Justice
Department as a trial lawyer and later the Treasury Department to work on tax
policy. She took up private practice in 1966. In 1972, she was offered a seat
on the Tax Court in Washington, where she served until 1981. She then moved to
the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, and in 1984 was
named to the 9th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals. She has since moved to
senior status on the court.
Rita
Hauser
Rita Hauser is President of The Hauser Foundation. She is
an international lawyer, senior Partner and now of counsel to the New York City
law firm, Stroock, Stroock and Lavan. She is known for her public service and
philanthropic work. Interested in world peace, security, and human rights, she
has served as the U.S. Representative to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights,
and on commissions affiliated with the U.S. Department of State, The Brookings
Institution and the International Center for Peace in the Middle East. Dr.
Hauser chairs The International Peace Academy and The Advisory Board of the
RAND Center for Middle East Public Policy. She is a director of many
organizations, including: The Rand Corporation, The International Institute for
Strategic Studies in London, The New York Philharmonic Society and Lincoln
Center for the Performing Arts. She is on the Visiting Committee of the John F.
Kennedy School at Harvard University, on the Dean's Advisory Board of Harvard
Law School, and chair of the Advisory Board of the Hauser Center for Nonprofit
Organizations at Harvard University. Dr. Hauser is a National Co-Chair of the
Harvard University Campaign. She holds advanced degrees from the University of
Strasbourg in France, Harvard and NYU Law Schools, and the University of Paris
Law Faculty.
Patricia Reilly
Hitt
A Whittier, California native, Patricia Reilly Hitt
graduated from the University of Southern California. She was an educator and
board member of several educational organizations. She began ringing doorbells
for Richard Nixon in his first political campaign in 1946. She became
increasingly active in California politics, working in a number of campaigns,
rising eventually to National Co-chair of the Nixon-Agnew Campaign in 1968, the
first woman to hold such a post in either party. In January 1969, she was named
Assistant Secretary for Community and Field Services, Department of Health,
Education and Welfare. In this position, she was responsible for coordinating
the work of the Department's ten regional field offices across all programs.
She has received numerous awards including honorary doctorates from several
colleges and served on the boards of Whittier College and Chapman College and a
number of other organizations. After her term in Washington, she returned to
California where she is active in community service, although she remained an
appointee to the President's Commission on White House Fellows.
Maj. Gen. Jeanne M. Holm,
USAF - Retired
Jeanne M. Holm was the first woman in the armed
forces to be promoted to the rank of Major General (1973), and this was only
one of her many firsts. She served in the Army from 1942-1945 and transferred
to the Air Force in 1948, when a new law integrated women in the regular armed
forces. Gen. Holm served in a variety of personnel assignments, including
Director of Women in the Air Force from 1965-73. She played a significant role
in eliminating restrictions on numbers of women serving in all ranks, expanding
job and duty station assignments for women, opening ROTC and service academies
to women, and changing the policies on the status of women in the armed forces.
According to Brig. Gen. Wilma L. Vaught, "Gen. Jeanne Holm is recognized as the
single driving force in achieving parity for military women and making them a
viable part of the mainstream military." After her retirement, she served as a
Special Assistant on Women for President Ford and as a policy consultant for
the Carter administration. She is the author of
Women in the Military, An Unfinished
Revolution (Presidio Press, 1986, revised edition, 1992).
Patricia
Hutar
With her political involvement beginning in the Young
Republicans, Patricia Hutar became an early advocate for women's rights and
initiated her interest in international affairs both in her professional and
political careers. She served as co-chair of the Republican National Committee.
Ms. Hutar was appointed to the Task Force on Women's Rights and
Responsibilities. Later she was appointed by the President of the United States
to serve as U.S. Representative to the U.N. Commission of the Status of Women,
and in that capacity was chair of the U.S. delegations to the International
Women's Year Conference in Mexico City. As a result of her interest in
international women's affairs, she became the Founding President of the United
Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). Later Ms. Hutar was elected
President of the National Federation of Republican Women. She has served as a
consultant on national/international affairs. Ms. Hutar became the Director of
the Office of International Medicine for the American Medical Association. She
also served as a member of the Washington Roundtable of the Center for
Strategic and International Studies. Ms. Hutar is a founding member and
director of the International Foundation for Election Systems. She was elected
chair of the Board of Directors of IFES in June 2001, and was also elected
chair of the Board of Directors of IFES Limited, London, in July 2001. IFES is
committed to serving emerging, transitional and mature democracies in the areas
of elections, the rule of law, strengthening of civil society, and
governance.
E. Pendleton
James
E. Pendleton James has over thirty years experience in the
executive search field. He is a 1954 graduate of the University of the Pacific
and did graduate work at the University of California at Berkeley and the
University of Santa Clara. After several positions in personnel management and
recruiting, Pen James became a member of President Nixon's White House staff
(1970-1972), where he served as Deputy Special Assistant to the President with
primary responsibility for recruiting leading figures to fill Presidential
appointment positions. Returning to the private sector in 1981, he was
president and owner of Pen James and Associates, Inc., an executive search firm
headquartered in Los Angeles. In 1980, he became director of personnel for
President-elect Reagan. From January 1981 to August 1982, he served in the
Reagan White House as Assistant to the President for Presidential Personnel,
where he was responsible for Cabinet and sub-Cabinet appointments in all
departments and agencies of the Federal Government, as well as appointments to
regulatory agencies, boards, commissions, and ambassadorships. In April 1983,
President Reagan nominated James to a three-year term on the Board of Directors
of the Communications Satellite Corporation. He later returned to his company
and, in 1996, James sold his interests in Pen James and Associates. He is also
a former member of the board of the Metropolitan Life Series Fund and the White
House Fellows Commission. He currently serves on the Board of the Citizens for
Democracy Corps, which fosters privatization in Eastern Europe. During his
career, he has been involved in a number of civic and philanthropic
organizations.
Virginia Knauer
Virginia Knauer grew up in Philadelphia, where her father was a
professor of accounting at Temple University, and she graduated from both the
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the University of Pennsylvania. She
became interested in politics in the 1950s and began organizing Republican
women's groups in support of President Eisenhower. She was later elected to
consecutive terms on the Philadelphia City Council, and became Governor Raymond
Shafer's principal advisor on consumer affairs, a new post. She was lured to
Washington and took a similar post in the Nixon White House, which she later
held under Presidents Ford and Reagan as well. Because of her expertise, she
also served on the Cost of Living Council and a number of other White House
domestic policy committees. At other times, she formed her own consulting
service on consumer affairs, was chair of the non-partisan Council for the
Advancement of Consumer Policy, and served on a number of other organizational
and corporate boards. Knauer has also been active in Republican politics,
historic preservation activities, and has received numerous awards for her
public service and work on behalf of the consumer movement.
Esther Christian
Lawton
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y. in 1910, Esther Lawton's family
realized from an early age that she had academic talent and supported her
education through college at a time when relatively few women could take that
route. She graduated from the University of Rochester in 1932 and, with her
husband, took the Civil Service examination for a government position. She was
called to Washington in June 1936, and began working in the Treasury
Department, first in public relations, and then coordinating foreign
intelligence reporting before the creation of the Office of Strategic Services.
In 1942, she began work as a position classifier, the field where she would
make extraordinary contributions over the next 38 years. She rose gradually,
becoming Assistant Director in 1961 and Deputy Director of Personnel for the
Treasury Department in 1972, then the highest ranking woman in the department.
Esther Lawton was an extraordinary teacher and organizational leader. In 1961,
she was the first woman elected president of the American Society for Public
Administration. She founded the Training Officers' Conference, the
Classification and Compensation Society, and the International Association for
Personnel Women, as well as a number of women's organizations. During these
years, Lawton also served as a consultant for the Ford Foundation in Lebanon
and Jordan, advising those governments on personnel management, occupational
classification, and salary scale determination. During the 1970s, Lawton was
instrumental in developing lists of women qualified for supergrade positions
and she worked closely with Barbara Franklin. Widely known as probably the best
classification analyst in the federal government, Lawton received numerous
awards including the 1969 Federal Woman's Award and was twice named
Professional Woman of the Year by Washington's Business and Professional
Women's Clubs. She retired from the federal government in 1980 and opened her
own management consulting firm as well as teaching at George Washington
University's School of Government and Business Administration. Ether Lawton
died in Washington, D.C., on February 14, 1998.
Fred
Malek
Fred Malek grew up near Chicago and won an appointment to
West Point. Following a tour as an airborne ranger officer with the Special
Forces in Vietnam, he spent two years in business before coming to Washington
as Deputy Under Secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
In 1970 he became Special Assistant to President Nixon, where he was
responsible for recruiting for cabinet-level positions, commissions and boards.
He later served as Deputy Director of the Office and Management and Budget and
then Member of the White House Domestic Council, before leaving government
service in 1975 to join the Marriott Corporation. There he rose to become
President of Marriott Hotels and Resorts when he moved on to become President
and Co-CEO, and later Chairman, of Northwest Airlines. During the 1990s, he
founded Thayer Capital Partners, a finance and investment firm, and serves as a
director of several corporations. Malek remained active in Republican political
circles and served in advisory roles in both the Reagan and Bush
administrations. His book,
Washington's Hidden Tragedy, the Failure to Make
Government Work, stemmed from his leadership of an effort to improve
government management.
Paula Adams
Tennant
Paula Adams Tennant followed a singular path to a law
career. Graduating from high school during the Depression, she could not afford
college. She served in the Navy during the war, and afterward went to law
school on the GI Bill. Passing the California bar exam, she began her practice
of law. She served as Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Territory of Alaska in
Fairbanks and as a district attorney in California, and was twice appointed by
Gov. Ronald Reagan to the California Youth Authority Board, the state's parole
body for juveniles. In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon appointed Tennant to
the U.S. Board of Parole, where she played a significant role over a number of
years in reforming the federal parole process. In 1983, President Reagan
appointed her to the U.S. Parole Commission. Since her retirement, she has
continued to write and publish poetry, has been a volunteer for the SETI
Institute, and is involved in a variety of community projects near her home in
northern California.
Margita E.
White
Margita White emigrated from Sweden with her family in 1948
when she was ten years old. She grew up in Southern California and graduated
magna cum laude from the University of Redlands in 1959. She developed a strong
interest in politics, volunteering and working in several legislative offices.
In 1960, she received her M.A. in political science from Rutgers where she was
a Woodrow Wilson National Fellow at the Eagleton Institute of Politics. She
worked in both the 1960 Nixon and 1964 Goldwater presidential campaigns while
pursuing a career in public policy. After working on the 1968 Nixon campaign,
she joined the White House staff as an assistant to Communications Director
Herbert G. Klein. In 1973, she was named Assistant Director for Public
Information at the U.S. Information Agency and in 1975 returned to the White
House as, first, Assistant Press Secretary and, then, Director of the restored
Office of Communications for President Ford. In 1976, she was appointed to a
two-year term on the Federal Communications Commission. After the expiration of
her term, she served as a director and then vice chair of Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty, Inc., and on a number of other corporate boards. Between
1988 and her retirement in 2001, she was president of the Association for
Maximum Service Television, Inc., an industry group working on technology
policy issues and the primary advocates for high definition initiatives in
broadcast television. In April 2001, the National Association of Broadcasters
honored her with the acclaimed "Spirit of Broadcasting" award. Margita White
died on November 20, 2002.
