President Lyndon B. Johnson Parents Helen Lansdowne Resor | Name Stanley Resor Preceded by Stephen Ailes | |
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Born December 5, 1917
New York City, New York ( 1917-12-05 ) Alma mater Yale University (1939, 1942) Occupation lawyer, military officer, government official Died April 17, 2012, Washington, D.C., United States Spouse Jane Lawler (m. 1942–1994) Education Yale Law School, Groton School, Yale University | ||
Succeeded by Robert Frederick Froehlke | ||
Stanley Rogers Resor (December 5, 1917 – April 17, 2012) was an American lawyer, United States military officer, and government official.
Life and career
Born in New York City, he was the son of Helen Lansdowne Resor and Stanley B. Resor (pronounced REE-zor), president of the J. W. Thompson advertising agency and one of the originators of the modern advertising industry. While still a teenager he changed his name from Stanley Burnet Resor Jr. to Stanley Rogers Resor. The elder Resor graduated from Yale University in 1901, and his son followed him there after attending the Groton School, and graduated from Yale in 1939, where he was tapped to join Scroll and Key. He went on to Yale Law School where he was a contemporary of Sargent Shriver (also a member of Scroll and Key), Gerald Ford, and Cyrus Vance (who preceded him as Secretary of the Army and himself was a member of Scroll and Key and in the same year at Yale). Resor's education was interrupted by service as an Army officer in World War II (1942–1946), where he was awarded the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and the Purple Heart.
After the war he went to work on Wall Street, and was made partner in the prominent Debevoise & Plimpton law firm. In 1965 during the Vietnam War, President Lyndon Johnson appointed him Secretary of the Army and he remained in the position under President Richard Nixon until 1971. In 1984, he was awarded the United States Military Academy's Sylvanus Thayer Award.
During the 1970s he served as US ambassador to the MBFR (mutual and balanced force reduction) talks in Vienna, held between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Over time he grew critical of U.S. policy regarding nuclear weapons, and was a member of and spokesperson for the Arms Control Association of America in 1997 when it protested NATO expansion into Eastern Europe based on concerns about the reaction of the Russian government to perceived encroachment by NATO. He returned to Debevoise & Plimpton after he left government service and retired in 1991.
Resor married Jane Pillsbury of the Pillsbury family in 1942 in a ceremony attended by John F. Kennedy and Cyrus Vance. They had seven sons. After Jane's death in 1994 he married Louise Mead Resor in 1999.
Throughout his life he was a strong supporter of education and the rule of law, particularly for protecting the rights of women, children, and minorities, preventing international conflict, and protecting the environment.