C. Douglas Dillon

Clarence Douglas Dillon (born Clarence Douglass Dillon; August 21, 1909  January 10, 2003) was an American diplomat and politician, who served as U.S. Ambassador to France (1953–1957) and as the 57th Secretary of the Treasury (1961–1965). He was also a member of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (ExComm) during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

C. Douglas Dillon
Dillon in 1955
57th United States Secretary of the Treasury
In office
January 21, 1961  April 1, 1965
PresidentJohn F. Kennedy
Lyndon B. Johnson
Preceded byRobert B. Anderson
Succeeded byHenry H. Fowler
United States Under Secretary of State
In office
June 12, 1959  January 4, 1961
PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower
Preceded byChristian Herter
Succeeded byChester Bowles
Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment
In office
July 1, 1958  June 11, 1959
PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower
Preceded byWilliam L. Clayton
Succeeded byGeorge Ball
United States Ambassador to France
In office
March 13, 1953  January 28, 1957
PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower
Preceded byJames C. Dunn
Succeeded byAmory Houghton
Personal details
Born
Clarence Douglass Dillon

(1909-08-21)August 21, 1909
Geneva, Switzerland
DiedJanuary 10, 2003(2003-01-10) (aged 93)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Political partyRepublican
Spouse(s)
    Phyllis Chess Ellsworth
    (m. 1931; died 1982)
      Susan Sage
      (m. 1983)
      Children2, including Joan
      ParentsClarence Dillon
      Anne McEldin (née Douglass)
      EducationGroton School
      Alma materHarvard University (BA)
      Signature
      Military service
      Allegiance United States
      Branch/service United States Navy
      Rank Lieutenant commander[1]
      Battles/warsWorld War II
      [2]

      Early life

      Dillon was born on August 21, 1909, in Geneva, Switzerland, the son of American parents, Anne McEldin (née Douglass) and financier Clarence Dillon. Although Dillon grew up as a patrician, his paternal grandfather, Samuel Lapowski, was a poor Jewish emigrant from Poland.[3] After leaving Poland, his grandfather settled in Texas after the American Civil War and married Dillon's Swedish-American grandmother. Dillon's father later changed his family name to Dillon, an Anglicization of "Dylion", his grandmother's maiden name.[3] Dillon's mother was descended from the Graham family, Lairds of Tamrawer Castle at Kilsyth, Stirling, Scotland.

      Dillon began his education at Pine Lodge School in Lakehurst, New Jersey, which he attended at the same time as three of the Rockefeller brothers, Nelson, Laurance, and John. He continued at Groton School in Massachusetts, then at Harvard University, A.B. magna cum laude 1931 in American history and literature.[3][4] Dillon earned a varsity letter for football his senior year.[5]

      Career

      In 1938, be became Vice-President and Director of Dillon, Read & Co., a firm that bore his father's name (Clarence Dillon). After his World War II service on Guam, on Saipan, and in the Philippines, he left the United States Navy as Lieutenant Commander decorated with the Legion of Merit and Air Medal. In 1946 he became chairman of Dillon, Read; by 1952 he had doubled the firm's investments.[2]

      Political career

      Dillon had been active in Republican politics since 1934. He worked for John Foster Dulles in Thomas E. Dewey's 1948 presidential campaign. In 1951 he organized the New Jersey effort to secure the 1952 Republican nomination for Dwight D. Eisenhower. He was also a major contributor to Eisenhower's general election campaign in 1952.[2]

      President Eisenhower appointed him United States Ambassador to France in 1953. Following that appointment he became Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs in 1958 before becoming Under Secretary of State the following year.[6]

      Dillon and Kennedy in August 1961. Dillon had just returned from the conference in Uruguay in which the Alliance for Progress was formalized, and where Dillon did battle with Che Guevara.[7]

      In 1961, John F. Kennedy, appointed Republican Dillon Treasury Secretary. Dillon remained Treasury Secretary under President Lyndon B. Johnson until 1965.

      Dillon proposed the fifth round of tariff negotiations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), conducted in Geneva 1960–1962; it came to be called the "Dillon Round" and led to substantial tariff reduction. Dillon was important in securing presidential power for reciprocal tariff reductions under the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. He also played a role in crafting the Revenue Act of 1962, which established a 7 percent investment credit to spur industrial growth. He supervised revision of depreciation rules to benefit corporate investment.

      Philanthropy

      A close friend of John D. Rockefeller III, he was chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation from 1972 to 1975. He also served alongside John Rockefeller on the 1973 Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs, and under Nelson Rockefeller in the Rockefeller Commission to investigate CIA activities. He had been president of Harvard Board of Overseers, chairman of the Brookings Institution, and vice chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations.[3]

      Metropolitan Museum of Art

      With his first wife, Dillon collected Impressionist art. He was a longtime trustee of the Metropolitan Museum, serving as its President (1970–1977) and then chairman.[3] He built up its Chinese galleries and served as a member of the Museum's Centennial committee.[8] He personally donated $20 million to the museum and led a fundraising campaign, which raised an additional $100 million.[9]

      He received the Medal of Freedom in 1989 and was also a member of the Society of the Cincinnati[10] and the Society of Colonial Wars.[9]

      Personal life

      On March 10, 1931, Dillon married the former Phyllis Chess Ellsworth (1910–1982)[lower-alpha 1] in Boston, Massachusetts. Phyllis was the daughter of John Chess Ellsworth[11] and Alice Frances Chalifoux. The couple had two daughters:

      In 1983, the widowed Dillon married the former Susan "Suzzie" Slater (1917-2018). She had first been married to Theodore "Ted" Sheldon Bassett (1911-1983) in 1939 (div.). In 1949 she married British entertainer Jack Buchanan (1891-1957). In 1961 she wed DeWitt Linn Sage (1905-1982), who again left her a widow.

      Dillon died of natural causes on January 10, 2003, at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City at the age of 93.[9]

      Descendants

      Through his daughter Joan's first marriage, he was a grandfather of Joan Dillon Moseley (b. 1954), and through her second marriage to Prince Charles of Luxembourg,[12] he was a grandfather to Princess Charlotte (b. 1967) and Prince Robert (b. 1968) followed. After Prince Charles' death in 1977, Joan married Philippe-François-Armand-Marie, 8th duc de Mouchy in 1978, without further issue.[13]

      In fiction

      In the Brendan DuBois novel Resurrection Day (1999), the Cuban Missile Crisis erupts into a full-scale nuclear war and Washington, D.C. is destroyed. President Kennedy is killed, as is Vice President Johnson, most of the Senate and Congress, and most members of the Kennedy administration. Dillon, the Secretary of the Treasury, is eventually found to have survived the war and becomes the 36th President of the United States.

      See also

      References

      Notes
      1. Phyllis was born in South Bend, St. Joseph County, Indiana on August 3, 1910 and died in New York City, New York on June 20, 1982.
      Sources
      1. "National Archives Catalog. Dillon, C. Douglas (Clarence Douglas), 1909-2003. Person Authority Record". National Archives. Retrieved May 1, 2020.
      2. "C. Douglas Dillon, former Treasury secretary and Harvard overseer, dies at 93". Harvard Gazette. Harvard University news office. January 16, 2003. Retrieved 2009-03-27.
      3. Eric Pace (January 12, 2003). "C. Douglas Dillon Dies at 93; Was in Kennedy Cabinet". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-03-27.
      4. "Dillon, C(larence) Douglas. Priscilla Roberts.The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives. Arnold Markoe, Karen Markoe, and Kenneth T. Jackson (editors). Vol. 7: 2003–2005. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2007. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Michigan: Gale, 2009. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC Via Fairfax County Public Library. Accessed 2009-03-27. Document Number: K2875000085
      5. "C. Douglas Dillon". John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.
      6. Rabe, Stephen G. (1999). The Most Dangerous Area in the World: John F. Kennedy Confronts Communist Revolution in Latin America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina press. pp. 30–32. ISBN 080784764X.
      7. Finding aid for the George Trescher records related to The Metropolitan Museum of Art Centennial, 1949, 1960-1971 (bulk 1967-1970) Archived 2019-04-12 at the Wayback Machine. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 5 August 2014.
      8. Jackson, Harold (24 January 2003). "Douglas Dillon | The Republican behind JFK's economic boom". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 March 2018.
      9. Society of the Cincinnati (1998). Roster of the Society of the Cincinnati. Washington, DC: Society of the Cincinnati. p. 87.
      10. Timothy Edward Howard, History of St Joseph County, Indiana, vol II (1907), pp. 886–887
      11. "Mrs. Joan Dillon Betrothed to Prince; She Will Be Wed in Spring to Charles of Luxembourg". The New York Times. 11 February 1967. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
      12. Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, Fürstliche Häuser XVIII. "Luxemburg". C.A. Starke Verlag, 2007, pp. 83–84, 449–450. (German). ISBN 978-3-7980-0841-0.

      Further reading

      • Nelson Lichtenstein, ed., Political Profiles: The Johnson Years (1976)
      • Eleanora W. Schoenebaum, ed., Political Profiles: The Eisenhower Years (1977)
      • Bernard S. Katz and C. Daniel Vencill, Biographical Dictionary of the United States Secretaries of the Treasury, 1789–1995 (1996)
      • Joseph M. Siracusa, ed., Presidential Profiles: The Kennedy Years (2004)
      • Deane F. Heller, The Kennedy Cabinet: America's Men of Destiny (1961)
      • Robert Sobel, The Life and Times of Dillon Read (1991), a study of the investment bank
      • Robert C. Perez and Edward F. Willett, Clarence Dillon: A Wall Street Enigma (1995), a biography of Dillon's father.
      Diplomatic posts
      Preceded by
      James Clement Dunn
      U.S. Ambassador to France
      March 13, 1953 – January 28, 1957
      Succeeded by
      Amory Houghton
      Government offices
      Preceded by
      William L. Clayton
      Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs
      July 1, 1958 – June 11, 1959
      Succeeded by
      George Wildman Ball
      Preceded by
      Christian Herter
      Under Secretary of State
      June 12, 1959 – January 4, 1961
      Succeeded by
      Chester Bowles
      Preceded by
      Robert B. Anderson
      U.S. Secretary of the Treasury
      Served under: John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson

      January 21, 1961 – April 1, 1965
      Succeeded by
      Henry H. Fowler
      Cultural offices
      Preceded by
      Arthur Amory Houghton Jr.

      President of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

      1970-1977
      Succeeded by
      William B. Macomber, Jr.
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