Stahr, Walter

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Stahr, Walter

PERSONAL: Born in MA; married, wife's name Masami; children: two. Education: Stanford University, A.B. (political science), 1978; Harvard University, M.A. (public policy), J.D. (cum laude), 1982.

ADDRESSES: Home—VA. Office—Emerging Markets Partnership, 2001 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Ste. 1100, Washington, DC 20006.

CAREER: Cleary Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, Washington, DC, and Hong Kong, China, associate; U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Washington, DC, special counsel to the chairman; Fidelity Investments, Hong Kong, senior counsel; Emerging Markets Partnership, Washington, DC, managing director, 1999–.

MEMBER: Phi Beta Kappa.

WRITINGS:

John Jay: Founding Father, Hambledon & London (New York, NY), 2005.

SIDELIGHTS: Walter Stahr is an international lawyer who began researching the life of John Jay (1745–1829) during the 1990s while he was working in Hong Kong. His resulting biography, John Jay: Founding Father, documents the accomplishments of Jay, who served as governor of New York, president of the Continental Congress, and secretary of foreign affairs and was one of the three authors—the others being Alexander Hamilton and James Madison—of the "Federalist Papers" written in support of ratification of the Constitution.

Jay was a conservative man noted more for his deeds than his words, and he was a gifted diplomat who eased tensions between Benjamin Franklin and John Adams in dealing with Britain. During the years after the Treaty of Paris and before George Washington took office, he was foreign secretary. He worked to enforce the terms of the peace treaty and convince both sides to honor their commitments—the Americans to pay prewar debts and Britain to remove its troops. This is the first John Jay biography in many decades and stresses, according to Booklist reviewer Jay Freeman, "his deep religious connections, strength of moral character, and dedication to duty." Stahr, furthermore, writes of Jay's friendships and personal life as a husband, father, and son. A Publishers Weekly reviewer commented that Stahr makes his subject "an appealing figure accessible to a large readership and places Jay once again in the company of America's greatest statesmen, where he unquestionably belongs."