Biddle, Francis

Biddle, Francis (Beverley)

(1886–1968) lawyer; U.S. attorney general; born in Paris, France. He was secretary to Supreme Court Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes (1911–12), then practiced as a lawyer in Philadelphia. He was first chairman of the National Labor Relations Board (1934) and a strong defender of the Tennessee Valley Authority and other New Deal programs. Solicitor general (1940–41) and attorney general (1941–45) of the U.S.A., he was chief U.S. representative at the Nuremberg war crimes trials. In addition to several books on the law and his autobiography, he wrote one novel, Llanfear Pattern (1927).

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.