Walter F. Murphy

Born in Charleston, South Carolina, Murphy won a Distinguished Service Cross and was awarded a Purple Heart for his service as a Marine in the Korean War, eventually retiring with the rank of colonel. His undergraduate degree was from Notre Dame (1950) and he taught government at the U.S. Naval Academy before returning to graduate school, receiving a Ph.D. in 1957 from the University of Chicago. Thereafter he spent a year as a fellow at the Brookings Institution. He held the chair of McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton, a chair whose first occupant was Woodrow Wilson. As a professor, he was undergraduate thesis advisor for Samuel Alito. His professional writing, consisting mostly of non-fiction works on political science, included the classic Constitutional Democracy: Creating and Maintaining a Just Political Order; he has also written three popular novels, including The Vicar of Christ. Murphy died of cancer at age 80, according to his wife, Doris Maher Murphy.

Murphy's name was on the "Selectee List".[1][2]

• The Charleston Post and Courier
• The New York Times
• Walter F. Murphy at Find a Grave