LINOWITZ, Sol Myron 1913-

PERSONAL: Born December 7, 1913, in Trenton, NJ; son of Joseph (a merchant) and Rose (a homemaker; maiden name, Oglenskye) Linowitz; married Evelyn Zimmerman (an artist and homemaker), September 3, 1939; children: Anne Mozersky, June, Jan, Ronni Jolles (daughter). Education: Hamilton College, B.A., 1935; Cornell University, J.D. (summa cum laude), 1938. Politics: Democrat. Religion: Jewish. Hobbies and other interests: Violin.

ADDRESSES: Offıce—Academy for Educational Development, 1875 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. 20009. Agent—Harry Walker Agency, 355 Lexington Ave., 21st floor, New York, NY 10017.

CAREER: Lawyer and diplomat. Admitted to the Bar of New York State, 1938; Sutherland & Sutherland (law firm), Rochester, NY, 1938-42; Office of Price Administration, assistant general counsel, 1942-44; Sutherland, Linowitz & Williams, partner, 1946-58; Harris, Beach, Keating, Wilcox & Linowitz, Rochester, NY, partner, 1958-66; Xerox Corp., chairman of the board of directors and general counsel, 1958-66; Coudert Bros., senior partner, 1969-84, senior counsel, 1984-94. Ambassador to the Organization of American States, 1966-69; conegotiator of Panama Canal treaties, 1977-78; chair of Presidential Committee to End World Hunger, 1978-79; special Middle East negotiator for President Carter, 1979-81; cochair of the Inter-American Dialogue, 1981-92. National Urban Coalition, chairman, 1970-76; Jewish Theological Seminary, board of directors, 1971-79; Federal City Council, chairman, 1974-76; American Academy of Diplomacy, chair, 1984-89; International Executive Service Corps, founder; Academy for Educational Development, honorary chairman; trustee of Hamilton College, Cornell University, Johns Hopkins University, American Assembly, Salk Institute. Military service: U.S. Navy, 1944-46; officer.

MEMBER: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Association for UN (president, NY state), Council on Foreign Relations, Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi.

AWARDS, HONORS: Presidential Medal of Freedom, 1998; honorary degrees from more than forty colleges and universities.

WRITINGS:

(With Charles Habib Malik and Daniel Parker) International Business-Government Relations, forewords by Maurice H. Stans and Bert C. Goss, Center for the Study of Private Enterprise at American University (Washington, DC), 1970.

Campus Tensions: Analysis and Recommendations, Publications Division of the American Council on Education (Washington, DC), 1970.

This Troubled Urban World, foreword by Barnaby C. Keeney, Center for the Claremont Colleges at Claremont University (Claremont, CA), 1974.

World Hunger: A Challenge to American Policy, Foreign Policy Association (New York, NY), 1980.

The Making of a Public Man: A Memoir, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1985.

(With Martin Mayer) The Betrayed Profession: Lawyering at the End of the Twentieth Century, C. Scribner's Sons (New York, NY), 1994.

Contributor to professional journals. A lecture on the Panama Canal Treaties was recorded by the Economic Club of New York, September 29, 1977.

SIDELIGHTS: Sol Myron Linowitz served as the lawyer of the Xerox Corporation at the time of its meteoric rise in wealth, and he later had a distinguished career as a diplomat. Linowitz served as a conegotiator of the Panama Canal Treaties and as a special ambassador for President Carter to the Middle East peace negotiations, and in 1998 he was awarded the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Linowitz chaired many civic organizations and commissions and published The Making of a Public Man: A Memoir and The Betrayed Profession: Lawyering at the End of the Twentieth Century.

When practising law in Rochester, New York, Linowitz befriended businessman Joseph Wilson and soon began handling the patents and licenses for what would become Xerox, as he describes in his memoir. Soon Linowitz held an executive post in the extraordinarily successful company; in a review of The Making of a Public Man for the Washington Post Book World, Bernard A. Weisberger noted, "Linowitz seems to hurry over this part of the story, giving almost no sense of what crossroads were reached or why particular directions were taken. He does convey a sense of the enjoyment he and Wilson shared as they moved from the early days of earnest salesmanship and clumsy experiments to the heady realms of multi-millionairedom and status as civic ornaments." Thus Linowitz left his post as chairman of the board of Xerox "to fulfill what he considered 'an obligation of the successful professional or businessman: to devote a period of his life to the service of his country,'" quoted Hal Goodman in the New York Times Book Review.

In 1966 Lyndon Johnson named Linowitz U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States, and the next Democratic president, Jimmy Carter, appointed him one of the negotiators of a new treaty with Panama. Bernard A. Weisberger stated, "The slow and difficult negotiations to achieve this pact—and the long and elaborate process of back-scratching, arm-twisting, logrolling, horse-trading and horn-blowing necessary to get it ratified—fill a large portion of the book." Based on his later experiences in the negotiations between Egypt and Israel over Gaza, Linowitz "offers sharp-edged profiles of Jimmy Carter, Menachem Begin, and Anwar el-Sadat," according to Hal Goodman. Similarly Donald Morrison, in a review for Time, praised "Linowitz's talent for spare, telling portraits. Among them: Chester Carlson, the arthritic, scholarly patent attorney who, in a one-room laboratory behind a beauty parlor in Astoria, Queens, invented the porcess that made Xerox a name to copy," and added that Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter make memorable appearances in the book.

Linowitz's next major work, The Betrayed Profession: Lawyering at the End of the Twentieth Century, explores the progressive corruption of his first calling. "To Mr. Linowitz's mind, which seems influenced by a suspect nostalgia, law practice as he learned it was 'a helping profession, not a continuation of war by other means,'" quoted Lincoln Caplan in the New York Times Book Review. Linowitz writes, "Too many in my profession have taken a calling that sought the good of society and twisted it into an occupation that seems intent primarily on seeking a good income." The Betrayed Profession asserts that the ethical effects of this change have been immense, and Lincoln Caplan noted "The book's many examples should squelch any doubt that many big firms in particular, and the profession in general, are riddled by greed, hypocrisy and significant wrongdoing." Critics question whether Linowitz is right to call these problems new, but clearly he is less interested in their history than in possible solutions. His suggestions include "mandatory pro bono contributions by lawyers, in the form of money or unpaid legal work. His answer to the inefficiencies of the tort system: national health insurance and enhanced Social Security," summarized Jonathan Groner in a review for the Washingon Post Book World. Donald Morrison, in Time, concluded "Linowitz is among the dwindling priesthood . . . who still believe they have a civic duty far beyond the bottom line."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Library Journal, June 1, 1994, Elizabeth Fielder Olson, review of The Betrayed Profession: Lawyering at the End of the Twentieth Century, p. 134.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, February 2, 1986, Jeff Riggenbach, review of The Making of a Public Man: A Memoir.

New York Times Book Review, November 17, 1985, Hal Goodman, review of The Making of a Public Man, p. 31; May 22, 1994, Lincoln Caplan, review of The Betrayed Profession, p. 38.

Publishers Weekly, April 4, 1994, review of TheBetrayed Profession, p. 65.

Time, November 4, 1985, Donald Morrison, review of The Making of a Public Man, p. 86.

Washington Post Book World, October 27, 1985, Bernard A. Weisberger, review of The Making of a Public Man; August 21, 1994, Jonathan Groner, review of The Betrayed Profession, p. 4.*