Leonard Carpenter Meeker (April 4, 1916 – November 29, 2014) was an American politician, lawyer and diplomat who served as the

U.S. Ambassador to Romania A United States diplomatic representative to Romania has existed since 1880. The United States formally recognized Romania in 1878, following the Treaty of Berlin; diplomatic relations were opened in 1880, and American diplomats were sent to the ...

. He was the father of Sarah Meeker Jensen FAIA and

Charles Meeker Charles Carpenter Meeker (born July 27, 1950) is an American politician and member of the Democratic Party who served as the 34th Mayor of Raleigh, North Carolina. He was first elected in 2001 over Republican Paul Coble, and reelected for a fif ...

, 34th Mayor of Raleigh, North Carolina.

Early life and education

Meeker graduated from Deerfield Academy and

Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zephaniah Swift Moore, Amherst is the third oldest institution of higher educatio ...

, and went on to graduate from

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...

, where he was on the board of editors of the

Harvard Law Review The ''Harvard Law Review'' is a law review published by an independent student group at Harvard Law School. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the ''Harvard Law Review''s 2015 impact factor of 4.979 placed the journal first out of 143 ...

Government service

During World War II, Meeker worked behind

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

lines in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

in the Office of Strategic Services. He was honorably discharged from the United States Army in 1946 with the rank of First lieutenant. After the war ended, he began work as a lawyer at the United States Department of the Treasury and later in the office of the Solicitor General of the United States. During the Kennedy Administration, Meeker worked as an advisor to U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk and helped President Kennedy defuse the

Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (of 1962) ( es, Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, the Caribbean Crisis () in Russia, or the Missile Scare, was a 35-day (16 October – 20 November 1962) confrontation between the United S ...

. Meeker went on to serve as a legal advisor to

President Lyndon B Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...

. During his time as an advisor, he worked on treaties with Austria, a peace treaty with

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, and on a variety of United Nations affairs. While working as a State Department legal adviser, he became convinced the Israelis knew they were attacking an American naval vessel during the 1967 USS ''Liberty'' incident: “The Israeli and U.S. Navy accounts of what happened on 8 June 1967 plainly do not jibe. The attacks on the ''Liberty'' cannot be written off as accidental. Nor can they really be seen as the result of mis-identification of the ship. In view of the repeated reconnaissance runs by Israeli aircraft over several hours between 0515 and 1245, the air and torpedo boat attacks must be judged as deliberate.” In 1969, Meeker was nominated by President Richard Nixon to serve as ambassador to Romania. He left the role after Nixon's 1972 re-election.

Later life

After retirement from government service, Meeker worked as an attorney for the Center for Law and Social Policy in Washington, D.C., where he practiced law in the federal courts on matters related to the environment, consumer protection, and human rights. Meeker also served as chairman of the board of the Contemporary Music Forum and as a member of the boards of the Union of Concerned Scientists and

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

. In 1986, Meeker attended a conference in Moscow on a comprehensive ban of Nuclear weapons testing. In 2007, Meeker published a three-volume set of his views on life, titled ''Philosophy and Politics,'' ''Experiences'' and ''Stories.''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Meeker, Leonard C. 1916 births 2014 deaths 20th-century American politicians Nixon administration personnel Kennedy administration personnel Lyndon B. Johnson administration personnel Ambassadors of the United States to Romania Politicians from Montclair, New Jersey North Carolina Democrats Cuban Missile Crisis Harvard Law School alumni Deerfield Academy alumni Amherst College alumni