Biography

August 8, 1908 · Chicago, Illinois, USA

January 19, 1990 · Washington, District of Columbia, USA (heart attack from coronary artery disease)

Arthur Joseph Goldberg

1.78 m

Attorney, expert in labor-management relations, Secretary of Labor for President John F. Kennedy, he graduated from Northwestern University in 1930 summa cum laude as top student in his class. During WWII while serving in the OSS he organized anti-Nazi European transportation workers behind enemy lines into a vast intelligence network. As general counsel for the Congress of Industrial Organizations, Goldberg helped to merge that union with the American Federation of Labor in 1955, forming the AFL-CIO. After being appointed Secretary of Labor, he was an advocate for African Americans to reduce racial discrimination in employment. President Lyndon B. Johnson urged him in 1965 to head the U.S. delegation to the United Nations, but he resigned as U.N. ambassador in 1968 because he disagreed with Johnson's escalation of the war in Vietnam. In 1970 he ran unsuccessfully for governor of New York. He was U.S. ambassador at large under President Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s.

Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1962-1965).

U.S. Secretary of Labor (1961-1962).

Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume Two, 1986-1990, pages 333-335. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1999.

[on Committee] If Columbus had had an Advisory Committee, he would probably still be at the dock.