Richard N. Goodwin
Richard N. Goodwin (born
December 7,
1931 in
Boston, Massachusetts) is an
American writer who may be best known as an advisor and
speechwriter to Presidents
Kennedy and
Johnson and to Senator
Robert F. Kennedy.
Goodwin attended
Brookline High School and graduated summa cum laude from
Tufts University in 1953. He went on to study law at
Harvard University, graduated summa cum laude in 1958 and joined the Massachusetts State bar the same year. After clerking for
United States Supreme Court Justice
Felix Frankfurter in 1958, Goodwin came to Senator
John F. Kennedy's attention in 1959 while working as special counsel to the Legislative Oversight Subcommittee of the
U.S. House of Representatives, where Goodwin was involved in investigating the
Twenty One quiz show scandal (which provided the story for the movie
Quiz Show).
Goodwin joined Kennedy's speech writing staff in 1959, and after Kennedy's successful presidential bid, served as assistant special counsel to the President in 1961. Goodwin was also a member of Kennedy's Task Force on
Latin American Affairs and in 1961, was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, a position he held until 1963. As one of Kennedy's specialists in Latin-American affairs, Goodwin helped develop the
Alliance for Progress, an economic development program for Latin America. From 1963 to 1964, Goodwin served as secretary-general of the International
Peace Corps and in 1964 became special assistant to President
Lyndon B. Johnson. He has been credited with naming Johnson's legislative agenda "the
Great Society".
Goodwin left government service in 1965, though returned briefly in 1968 to write speeches for presidential candidates
Robert F. Kennedy,
Eugene McCarthy and
Edmund Muskie. After leaving government, Goodwin served as a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies at
Wesleyan University in
Middletown, Connecticut from 1965 to 1967 and as a visiting professor of public affairs at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1968. After Senator Kennedy's death he retired from politics and became a writer.
Along with acting as a contributor to
Rolling Stone and
The New Yorker, Goodwin has published numerous books, articles and plays. In 2003, the Yvonne Arnaud Theater in Guilford, England produced his new work
The Hinge of the World, which took as its subject matter the quarrel between Galileo Galilei and the Vatican. In 1975, Goodwin married
Doris Kearns Goodwin and raised three children with her: Richard, Michael, and Joseph.
On May 12, 2006, Goodwin was arrested in Concord, Massachusetts for operating under the influence of alcohol, operating to endanger, and a marked lane violation. The arrest, Goodwin's second alcohol-related offense, was made after Goodwin hit a police cruiser with his vehicle.
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