Katzenbach, Nicholas

Katzenbach, Nicholas (de Belleville) (1922–  ) attorney general; born in Philadelphia, Pa. A prisoner of war in Germany (1943–45) and a Rhodes Scholar (1947–49), he was admitted to the New Jersey bar (1950), and became a member of the law firm, Katzenbach, Gildea & Rudner, in Trenton, N.J. He was general counsel to the Secretary of the Air Force while serving part-time as associate professor of law at Yale University (1952–56). He then taught at the University of Chicago (1956–60) and went to Switzerland (1960) to pursue an international law project as a Ford Foundation Fellow. He joined the Justice Department in 1961 as assistant attorney general in charge of the office of legal counsel (1961). As deputy attorney (1962–64), he fought to set an active agenda for the Justice Department, focusing on civil rights, antitrust litigation, and the war on crime. He was a major force in the integration of the Universities of Mississippi and Alabama and he helped draft the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He succeeded Robert Kennedy as attorney general (1965–66) and George Ball as undersecretary of state (1966–69). Leaving government service, he became senior vice-president and general counsel to IBM Corp. (1969–79); later he became a member of its board and worked on external relations (1984–86). Returning to private practice (1986), in 1991 he was named chairman of Bank Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) with orders to cut American ties from the tainted international banking system.