- William French Smith
Infobox US Cabinet official
name=William French Smith
order=74th
title=United States Attorney General
term_start=1981
term_end=1985
predecessor=Benjamin Civiletti
successor=Edwin Meese III
birth_date=birth date|1917|8|26
birth_place=Wilton, New Hampshire ,
United States
death_date=death date and age|1990|10|29|1917|8|26
death_place=
party= Republican
spouse=
profession=
religion=William French Smith (
August 26 1917 –October 29 1990 ) was an American lawyer and the 74thAttorney General of the United States .Born in
Wilton, New Hampshire , he received hisA.B. degree,summa cum laude , from theUniversity of California at Los Angeles in 1939, and hisLL.B. degree fromHarvard Law School in 1942.From 1942 to 1946, Mr. Smith served in the
United States Naval Reserve , reaching the rank oflieutenant . In 1946 he joined the law firm ofGibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP in Los Angeles, where he was a senior partner when in 1980 he was nominated Attorney General by then President-ElectRonald Reagan . Smith was a member of theAmerican Law Institute ,American Judicature Society , and the Institute of Judicial Administration's Board of Fellows, as well as a fellow of theAmerican Bar Foundation . He served as Attorney General from 1981 to 1985 and then joined thePresident's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board .He served as a member of the U.S. Advisory Commission on International, Educational and Cultural Affairs in
Washington, D.C. from 1971 to 1978; a member of the board of directors of the Los AngelesWorld Affairs Council since 1970 and its president since 1975; a member of the Los AngelesCommittee on Foreign Relations from 1954 to 1974; and a member of the Harvard University's School of Government since 1971.He also served as a member of the advisory board of the
Center for Strategic and International Studies atGeorgetown University , since 1978 and was a member of the Stanton Panel on International Information, Education and Cultural Relations in Washington from 1974 until 1975.His business affiliations included service as a director of the Pacific Lighting Corp. of Los Angeles from 1967 to 1981 and the Pacific Lighting Corp. of San Francisco from 1969 to 1981, a seat on the board of directors of Jorgensen Steel Company from 1974 to 1981, and a seat on the board of directors of
Pullman, Inc. ofChicago from 1979 to 1980.He was a member of the California delegation to the
Republican National Convention in 1968, 1972, and 1976, serving as chairman of the delegation in 1968 and vice chairman of the delegation in 1972 and 1976.He died in 1990, aged 73, from
cancer and was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park inGlendale, California .Possible cabinet member
In 1992, Independent presidential candidate
Ross Perot suggested appointing Smith to his Cabinet if Perot were to win the presidency. An aide then told Perot that this would not be possible because Smith was dead. Fact|date=June 2008Further reading
* Smith, William French, "Law and Justice in the Reagan Administration: The Memoirs of an Attorney General", 1991. ISBN 0-8179-9172-7
External links
* [http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1985/22885b.htm Appointment of William French Smith as a Member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board: February 28, 1985]
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