John Woolman Douglas
John W. Douglas, (15th August 1921 - 2nd June 2010), a lawyer who
helped organize the 1963 March on Washington and was involved in the
release of prisoners after the Bay of Pigs invasion.
Appointed by President John F. Kennedy in 1963, Mr. Douglas was
assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's civil
division, which represents federal employees, including members of
Congress and the Cabinet, in legal disputes.
He became the
Kennedy administration's point man for the August 1963 March on
Washington. He worked closely with march leaders and had a White
House mandate to keep the demonstration peaceable.
"Douglas's
team assisted the march planners in thinking through the day's
details, down to the adequacy of toilet facilities on the Mall,"
Seattle lawyer Drew D. Hansen wrote in "The Dream: Martin Luther
King Jr. and the Speech that Inspired a Nation" (2003), a book on
King's "I Have a Dream" speech, delivered Aug. 28, 1963, at the
Lincoln Memorial.
Mr. Douglas "shares historic credit for the
orderliness and smoothness and joy of that day," Victor S. Navasky
wrote in "Kennedy Justice" (1971), his history of Robert F.
Kennedy's Justice Department.
Mr. Douglas had made a name for
himself in Kennedy circles in late 1962, when he helped negotiate
the release of prisoners held by Cuban leader Fidel Castro. The
previous year, the CIA had sponsored an ill-fated attempt to
overthrow Castro. More than 1,500 anti-communist Cuban exiles went
ashore at the Bay of Pigs, on Cuba's southern underbelly. The exiles
were roundly defeated in three days, and most were taken prisoner.
Mr. Douglas was part of a four-man committee, including future
attorney general Nicholas Katzenbach, that eventually negotiated a
$53 million food-and-medicine swap for 1,113 prisoners.
John
Woolman Douglas was born Aug. 15, 1921, in Philadelphia. He
graduated from Princeton University in 1943 and served in the Navy
during World War II.
He received a law degree from Yale
University in 1948. After law school, Mr. Douglas attended Oxford
University as a Rhodes scholar and received a postgraduate degree in
politics, philosophy and economics.
He worked briefly for the
Washington law firm Covington & Burling, where he specialized in
civil litigation. In 1951 and 1952, he clerked for Supreme Court
Justice Harold H. Burton. After his clerkship, he returned to
Covington.
Mr. Douglas resigned from the Justice Department
in 1966 to work on the unsuccessful re-election campaign of his
father, Sen. Paul Douglas (D-Ill.). In 1968, he became a strategist
for the presidential campaign of Kennedy (D-N.Y.). Afterward, he
returned to Covington & Burling and in 1974 and 1975 was president
of the D.C. Bar.
In 1989, Mr. Douglas became an election
observer in Namibia, which was separating from South Africa. He was
an official observer of the 1994 election of Nelson Mandela as
president of South Africa.
Politics was his first love,
followed closely by music, said his daughter, Kate Douglas Torrey of
Chapel Hill, N.C. He was an accomplished pianist and had composed
songs while at Princeton.
He married Mary St. John in 1945.
She died in 2007. John W. Douglas died 2nd June 2010 at the Grand
Oaks assisted living facility in the District of Columbia. He had
complications from a stroke.
In addition to his daughter,
survivors include a son, Peter Douglas of New York; a brother; a
half sister; four grandchildren; and one great-grandson.
Any contributions will be
gratefully accepted
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