McGeorge Bundy was born 30 March 1919 in Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, United States to Harvey Hollister Bundy (1888-1963) and Katharine Lawrence Putnam (1890-1983) and died 16 September 1996 Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, United States of unspecified causes. He married Mary Buckminister Lothrop (1925-1996) 10 June 1950 in Beverly, Essex County, Massachusetts, United States.
Biography
McGeorge "Mac" Bundy was an American expert in foreign and defense policy, serving as United States National Security Advisor to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 through 1966. He was president of the Ford Foundation from 1966 through 1979. Despite his career as a foreign-policy intellectual, educator, and philanthropist, he is best remembered as one of the chief architects of the United States' escalation of the Vietnam War during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.
After World War II, during which Bundy served as an intelligence officer, in 1949 he was selected for the Council on Foreign Relations. He worked with a study team on implementation of the Marshall Plan. He was appointed a professor of government at Harvard University, and in 1953 as its youngest dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, working to develop Harvard as a merit-based university. In 1961 he joined Kennedy's administration. After serving at the Ford Foundation, in 1979 he returned to academia as professor of history at New York University, and later as scholar in residence at the Carnegie Corporation.
Ancestry
Born in 1919 and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, Bundy was the third son in a prosperous family long involved in Republican politics. His older brothers were Harvey Hollister Bundy, Jr., and William Putnam Bundy, and he had two younger sisters, Harriet Lowell and Katharine Lawrence.[1] His father, Harvey Hollister Bundy, hailing from Grand Rapids, Michigan, was a prominent attorney in Boston serving as a clerk for Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. in his younger days. Bundy's mother, Katherine Lawrence Putnam, was related to several Boston Brahmin families listed in the Social Register, the Lowells, the Cabots, and the Lawrences; she was a niece to Harvard president Abbott Lawrence Lowell (1856-1943).
The Bundys met and befriended Colonel Henry L. Stimson at some point of time. As Secretary of State under Herbert Hoover, in 1931 Stimson appointed Harvey Bundy as his Assistant Secretary of State. Later Bundy served again under Stimson as Secretary of War, acting as Special Assistant on Atomic Matters,[2] and serving as liaison between Stimson and the director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, Vannevar Bush.[3] William and McGeorge grew up knowing Stimson as a family friend and colleague of their father.[4] The senior Bundy also helped implement the Marshall Plan.
McGeorge Bundy attended the private Dexter Lower School in Brookline, Massachusetts and the elite Groton School, where he placed first in his class and ran the student newspaper and debating society.
Children
| Name | Birth | Death | Joined with |
| Stephen McGeorge Bundy (1951-) | |||
| Andrew Lothrop Bundy (1953-) | |||
| William Lowell Bundy (1955-) | |||
| James Abbott Bundy (1959-) | |||
Siblings
| Name | Birth | Death | Joined with |
| Harvey Hollister Bundy (1916-1997) | |||
| William Putnam Bundy (1917-2000) | 24 September 1917 Washington, District of Columbia, United States | 6 October 2000 Princeton, Mercer County, New Jersey, United States | Mary Eleanor Acheson (1924-) |
| McGeorge Bundy (1919-1996) | 30 March 1919 Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, United States | 16 September 1996 Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, United States | Mary Buckminister Lothrop (1925-1996) |
| Harriet Lowell Bundy (1920-2008) | |||
| Katherine Lawrence Bundy (1923-2014) | 9 September 1923 Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, United States | 26 May 2014 Lexington, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States | Hugh Auchincloss (1915-1998) |
References
- McGeorge Bundy - disambiguation
- Cabot Family of Boston - Boston Brahmin
- Bundy in Massachusetts -
- Amory Family (Boston) -
- John Amory Lowell (1799-1881)/immigrant_ancestors - early Colonial New England immigrant ancestors
Residences
Footnotes (including sources)
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