Massachusetts Bar Leader

The new president of the Massachusetts Bar Association, Dick Donahue '48, the youngest man ever to hold that office, has accomplished a number of "unusuals" in his 43 years. He entered politics with a successful last-minute candidacy or the Lowell school committee upon the urging of friends at a wedding reception on the Saturday before Tuesday's election. Politically unknown, he launched a sound-truck, telephone, and gummed-sticker campaign which swept him into office ahead of the entire field of candidates for both city council and school committee. Seasoned political campaigners were left holding their tally sheets and gasping.

That was in 1951, the year he and John F. Kennedy met at a Rotary Club luncheon and became close friends. The following year, Kennedy asked Dick to work in his campaign for the Senate. He started off as a spear-carrier in the Kennedy drama and wound up with a featured role. As part of the Kennedy team, Donahue was elected a member of the Democratic State Committee in 1956 and 1960. In 1958 he campaigned actively in Kennedy's Senate reelection race.

Two years later he dropped everything to help in the presidential primaries in Wisconsin, West Virginia, and Oregon, and after the Los Angeles convention, he became Deputy Director of Organization of the Democratic National Committee. From the elections to the inaugural he helped conduct a nationwide talent hunt for the new administration. He stayed on as one of the key men at the White House for almost three years, helping Lawrence O'Brien deal with the Congress, and then, just a week before the tragedy in Dallas, went home to Lowell. The need to support his growing family was real (he and Nancy had eight children at the time); the possibility of running for Congress on a ticket headed by two Kennedys was just speculation. At any rate, he rejoined the family law firm that his grandfather had founded in 1887.

Since leaving the Washington scene, Dick has been called upon as an adviser in governmental and business matters. As a consultant to the Post Office Department, he helped devise the first proposal to convert that ungainly institution into a private corporation. He has worked with Sargent Shriver on OEO legislation and programs.

Dick and his wife, the former Nancy Lawson of New Britain, Conn., now have eleven children and reside at 52 Belmont Avenue in Lowell. For the time being, at least, the Boston University law school graduate who was Lowell's "Outstanding Young Man" in 1956, is a partner at Donahue & Donahue, and content to remain politically inactive.

Richard K. Donahue '48