John Gilbert Winant
John Gilbert Winant | |
|---|---|
| 68th & 71st Governor of New Hampshire | |
| In office 1925 – 1927 1931–1935 | |
| Preceded by | Fred H. Brown (1925) Charles W. Tobey (1931) |
| Succeeded by | Huntley N. Spaulding (1927) Styles Bridges (1935) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | February 23, 1889 New York City, New York |
| Died | November 3, 1947 (aged 58) |
| Political party | Republican |
John Gilbert Winant OM (February 23, 1889–November 3, 1947) was an American teacher and Republican politician from Concord, New Hampshire.[1] Born in New York City, Winant held positions in New Hampshire, national, and international politics. He was the first man to serve more than a single two-year term as Governor of New Hampshire, winning election three times.
Background and early life
Winant attended St. Paul's School in Concord as well as Princeton University. He was appointed an instructor in history at St. Paul's in 1913, remaining there until 1917, and elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 1916. In 1917 he joined the United States Army Air Service, trained as a pilot, and commanded the 8th Aero Squadron (Observation) in France, with the rank of captain.
He was married to Constance Rivington Russell,[2] who took his surname and had a daughter, Constance Winant in 1921. His daughter married Carlos Valando, a Peruvian scientist, in 1941.[3]
Public offices
Winant returned to his position at St. Paul's in 1919 after his military service, and was elected to the New Hampshire Senate in 1920. He lost money in oil stocks in 1929, which he had profited from through the 1920s.
Governor of New Hampshire
He twice served as Governor of New Hampshire from 1925 to 1927 and later from 1931 to 1935.
Other offices
Subsequently President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Winant to be the first head of the Social Security Board in 1935, a position he held until 1937. The next year, he was elected to head the International Labor Office in Geneva, Switzerland, from January 1939.
US Ambassador to Great Britain
In 1941 Roosevelt appointed Winant ambassador to Britain, and Winant remained in that post until he resigned in March 1946. In a 2010 book, Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood with Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour, Winant is presented as dramatically changing the U.S. stance as ambassador when succeeding pro-appeasement ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. Winant announced upon landing at Bristol, England, airport in March, 1941, "I'm very glad to be here. There is no place I'd rather be at this time than in England." The remark, for a country that had come through the Battle of Britain and was in the midst of The Blitz, was dramatically on the front page of most British newspapers the next day. The 2010 book also reports that the new ambassador quickly developed close contacts with King George VI[4] and Prime Minister Winston Churchill, even though the U.S. was only providing provisions but had not yet joined the fight. Winant, it was also reported, carried on an affair with Churchill's second daughter Sarah Churchill during his time as ambassador.[5]
John Gilbert Winant was with Winston Churchill when he learned that Pearl Harbor was attacked[6]
President Harry S. Truman appointed him U.S. representative to UNESCO in 1946, although he retired to Concord shortly after to write his memoirs.
In 1947, Winant was only the second American citizen, after General Dwight Eisenhower, to be made an honorary member of the Order of Merit.
Suicide
Winant committed suicide later in 1947 on the day his book Letter from Grosvenor Square was published,[7] and was buried at St. Paul's School. The 2010 book reports that after Roosevelt's death, with Winant's distance from his Republican Party base, "[h]e hoped that he was going to become secretary-general of the new U.N. .... On top of that [disappointed hope], his affair with Sarah Churchill ended badly. 'He was an exhausted, sick man after the war,'" author Olson continued in the interview on NPR.[5]
An album of radio outtakes, Dick Clark Presents Radio's Uncensored Bloopers (Atlantic Records 80188), features a bizarre news report on Winant's suicide. The announcer quotes Winant's physician as saying Winant "committed suicide by shooting himself in the head with a large sixty-cent-size package of Alka-Seltzer." (It is unknown whether the report or the recording of it are genuine, as many blooper records contain bits that were re-created after the fact.)
Notes
- ^ http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/wilsons-winford.html
- ^ "The Roosevelt New Deal Sends An Ambassador To Britain's New Dealers". Life. 3 March 1941. Retrieved 11 April 2010.
- ^ "Milestones, Feb. 24, 1941". Time. 1941-02-24. Retrieved 11 April 2010.
{{cite news}}:|first=missing|last=(help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ Olson, Lynne, Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood with Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour, Chapter 1, (2010, Random House, 496 p.) Report with excerpt "Chapter 1: There's No Place I'd Rather Be Than In England" National Public Radio, All things considered, February 3, 2010.
- ^ a b Report with author interview at time of publication of Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood with Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour by Lynne Olson (2010, Random House, 496 p.) National Public Radio All things considered, February 3, 2010.
- ^ Olson, Lynne, Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood with Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour 2010 Random House
- ^ Freedman, James O. "John Gilbert Winant—Brief life of an exemplary public servant: 1889-1947". Harvard Magazine, November-December 2000. Retrieved 16 April 2009.
External links
- New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources - John G. Winant
- Social Security Pioneers - John Gilbert Winant
- 1889 births
- 1947 deaths
- Members of the New Hampshire House of Representatives
- New Hampshire State Senators
- Governors of New Hampshire
- People from New York City
- Princeton University alumni
- St. Paul's School (New Hampshire) alumni
- United States ambassadors to the United Kingdom
- Honorary Members of the Order of Merit