Richard N. Goodwin
Encyclopedia
Richard N. Goodwin is an American
writer who may be best known as an advisor and speechwriter
to Presidents Kennedy
and Johnson
and to Senator Robert F. Kennedy
.
and graduated summa cum laude from Tufts University
in 1953. He went on to study at Harvard Law School
, graduated summa cum laude in 1958 and joined the Massachusetts State bar the same year. He was married to Sandra Leverant from June 15, 1958 until her death in 1972. After clerking for United States Supreme Court
Justice Felix Frankfurter
in 1958, Goodwin came to Senator John F. Kennedy
's attention in 1959 while working as special counsel to the Legislative Oversight Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives
, where Goodwin was involved in investigating the Twenty One
quiz show scandal (which provided the story for the 1994 movie Quiz Show
in which he is portrayed by actor Rob Morrow
).
Goodwin joined Kennedy's speech writing staff in 1959, and after Kennedy's successful presidential bid, served as assistant special counsel to the President in 1961. Goodwin was also a member of Kennedy's Task Force on Latin America
n Affairs and in 1961, was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, a position he held until 1963. As one of Kennedy's specialists in Latin-American affairs, Goodwin helped develop the Alliance for Progress
, an economic development program for Latin America, and met secretly with Che Guevara
in Uruguay
in August 1961. From 1963 to 1964, Goodwin served as secretary-general of the International Peace Corps
and in 1964 became special assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson
. He has been credited with naming Johnson's legislative agenda "the Great Society
."
Goodwin left government service in 1965, though returned briefly in 1968 to write speeches for presidential candidates Robert F. Kennedy
, Eugene McCarthy
and Edmund Muskie
. According to Time magazine he left White House because of an investigation FBI had taken against him whose content is unknown. After leaving government, Goodwin served as a Fellow on the faculty in the Center for Advanced Studies at Wesleyan University
in Middletown, Connecticut
from 1965 to 1967 and as a visiting professor of public affairs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
in 1968. After Senator Kennedy's assassination he retired from politics and became a writer.
Along with acting as a contributor to Rolling Stone
and The New Yorker
, Goodwin has published numerous books, articles and plays. In 2003, the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre
in Guildford, England produced his new work The Hinge of the World, which took as its subject matter the quarrel between Galileo Galilei
and the Vatican. Retitled Two Men of Florence (referring to Galileo and his adversary Pope Urban VIII
, who as Cardinal Maffeo Barberini had once been Galileo's mentor), the play made its American debut at the Huntington Theatre
in Boston in March 2009.
In 1975, Goodwin married Doris Kearns Goodwin
, with whom he has three children: Richard (from his earlier marriage to Ms. Leverant), Michael, and Joseph.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
writer who may be best known as an advisor and speechwriter
Speechwriter
A speechwriter is a person who is hired to prepare and write speeches that will be delivered by another person. Speechwriters are used by many senior-level elected officials and executives in the government and private sectors.-Skills and training:...
to Presidents Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
and Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
and to Senator Robert F. Kennedy
Robert F. Kennedy
Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy , also referred to by his initials RFK, was an American politician, a Democratic senator from New York, and a noted civil rights activist. An icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Kennedy family, he was a younger brother of President John F...
.
Life and career
Goodwin was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He attended Brookline High SchoolBrookline High School
Brookline High School is a four-year public high school in the town of Brookline, Massachusetts, in the United States.As of the 2007-08 school year, the school had an enrollment of 1,826 students and 136 teachers , for a student-teacher ratio of 13.4 to 1 teacher.-Education:Almost every senior in...
and graduated summa cum laude from Tufts University
Tufts University
Tufts University is a private research university located in Medford/Somerville, near Boston, Massachusetts. It is organized into ten schools, including two undergraduate programs and eight graduate divisions, on four campuses in Massachusetts and on the eastern border of France...
in 1953. He went on to study at Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
, graduated summa cum laude in 1958 and joined the Massachusetts State bar the same year. He was married to Sandra Leverant from June 15, 1958 until her death in 1972. After clerking for United States Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
Justice Felix Frankfurter
Felix Frankfurter
Felix Frankfurter was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.-Early life:Frankfurter was born into a Jewish family on November 15, 1882, in Vienna, Austria, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Europe. He was the third of six children of Leopold and Emma Frankfurter...
in 1958, Goodwin came to Senator John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
's attention in 1959 while working as special counsel to the Legislative Oversight Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
, where Goodwin was involved in investigating the Twenty One
Twenty One (game show)
Twenty One is an American game show which aired in the late 1950s. While it included the most popular contestant of the quiz show era, it became notorious for being a rigged quiz show which nearly caused the demise of the entire genre in the wake of United States Senate investigations...
quiz show scandal (which provided the story for the 1994 movie Quiz Show
Quiz Show
Quiz Show is a 1994 American historical drama film produced and directed by Robert Redford. Adapted by Paul Attanasio from Richard Goodwin's memoir Remembering America, the film is based upon the Twenty One quiz show scandal of the 1950s...
in which he is portrayed by actor Rob Morrow
Rob Morrow
Robert Alan "Rob" Morrow is an American actor. He is known for his portrayal of Don Eppes on Numb3rs and as Dr. Joel Fleischman on Northern Exposure, a role which garnered him three Golden Globes and two Emmy Award nominations for "Best Actor in a Dramatic Series."-Personal life:Morrow was born in...
).
Goodwin joined Kennedy's speech writing staff in 1959, and after Kennedy's successful presidential bid, served as assistant special counsel to the President in 1961. Goodwin was also a member of Kennedy's Task Force on Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
n Affairs and in 1961, was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, a position he held until 1963. As one of Kennedy's specialists in Latin-American affairs, Goodwin helped develop the Alliance for Progress
Alliance for Progress
The Alliance for Progress initiated by U.S. President John F. Kennedy in 1961 aimed to establish economic cooperation between the U.S. and South America.-Origin and goals:...
, an economic development program for Latin America, and met secretly with Che Guevara
Che Guevara
Ernesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...
in Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
in August 1961. From 1963 to 1964, Goodwin served as secretary-general of the International Peace Corps
Peace Corps
The Peace Corps is an American volunteer program run by the United States Government, as well as a government agency of the same name. The mission of the Peace Corps includes three goals: providing technical assistance, helping people outside the United States to understand US culture, and helping...
and in 1964 became special assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
. He has been credited with naming Johnson's legislative agenda "the Great Society
Great Society
The Great Society was a set of domestic programs in the United States promoted by President Lyndon B. Johnson and fellow Democrats in Congress in the 1960s. Two main goals of the Great Society social reforms were the elimination of poverty and racial injustice...
."
Goodwin left government service in 1965, though returned briefly in 1968 to write speeches for presidential candidates Robert F. Kennedy
Robert F. Kennedy
Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy , also referred to by his initials RFK, was an American politician, a Democratic senator from New York, and a noted civil rights activist. An icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Kennedy family, he was a younger brother of President John F...
, Eugene McCarthy
Eugene McCarthy
Eugene Joseph "Gene" McCarthy was an American politician, poet, and a long-time member of the United States Congress from Minnesota. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the U.S. Senate from 1959 to 1971.In the 1968 presidential election, McCarthy was the first...
and Edmund Muskie
Edmund Muskie
Edmund Sixtus "Ed" Muskie was an American politician from Rumford, Maine. He served as Governor of Maine from 1955 to 1959, as a member of the United States Senate from 1959 to 1980, and as Secretary of State under Jimmy Carter from 1980 to 1981...
. According to Time magazine he left White House because of an investigation FBI had taken against him whose content is unknown. After leaving government, Goodwin served as a Fellow on the faculty in the Center for Advanced Studies at Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and...
in Middletown, Connecticut
Middletown, Connecticut
Middletown is a city located in Middlesex County, Connecticut, along the Connecticut River, in the central part of the state, 16 miles south of Hartford. In 1650, it was incorporated as a town under its original Indian name, Mattabeseck. It received its present name in 1653. In 1784, the central...
from 1965 to 1967 and as a visiting professor of public affairs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
in 1968. After Senator Kennedy's assassination he retired from politics and became a writer.
Along with acting as a contributor to Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
and The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, Goodwin has published numerous books, articles and plays. In 2003, the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre
Yvonne Arnaud Theatre
The Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford, Surrey presents in-house productions which often tour and transfer to London's West End. Other performances include opera, ballet and pantomime. Named after the actress Yvonne Arnaud, the company has two performance venues, a main theatre and the smaller Mill...
in Guildford, England produced his new work The Hinge of the World, which took as its subject matter the quarrel between Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei , was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations and support for Copernicanism...
and the Vatican. Retitled Two Men of Florence (referring to Galileo and his adversary Pope Urban VIII
Pope Urban VIII
Pope Urban VIII , born Maffeo Barberini, was pope from 1623 to 1644. He was the last pope to expand the papal territory by force of arms, and was a prominent patron of the arts and reformer of Church missions...
, who as Cardinal Maffeo Barberini had once been Galileo's mentor), the play made its American debut at the Huntington Theatre
Huntington Theatre Company
The Huntington Theatre Company is a non-profit professional theater company in Boston, Massachusetts. The Huntington has garnered six Elliot Norton Awards and three Tony Award nominations for productions that were transferred to Broadway after critically acclaimed productions in Boston...
in Boston in March 2009.
In 1975, Goodwin married Doris Kearns Goodwin
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Doris Kearns Goodwin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American biographer and historian, and an oft-seen political commentator. She is the author of biographies of several U.S...
, with whom he has three children: Richard (from his earlier marriage to Ms. Leverant), Michael, and Joseph.
External links
- Richard Goodwin biography
- Goodwin's Descriptions of meeting Che Guevara, in Kennedy Documents Boston Globe, January 26, 2009