HONORARY DEGREE CITATIONS

Yankee lawyer, civil servant, gourmet cook, ardent hiker, gardener, golfer and water skier, as well as amateur hymnologist, we are proud that you are a son of Dartmouth.

After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Dartmouth, you went to study in France. You became sufficiently proficient in French to pass yourself off to Smith girls as a Frenchman. Not satisfied with that achievement, you went on to Harvard Law School.

You love the State of New Hampshire where you were born and have practiced law for 40 years. You have served the State in such diverse capacities as Assistant Attorney General, chairman of numerous planning groups, and president of the Historical Society. Your business and civic interests have ranged over the fields of insurance, natural resources, railroads, charitable trusts, and hospitals, to longtime service on the Board of Phillips Exeter.

You championed the cause of freedom in the State. You once wrote that "It is better to suffer the company of traitors than to coerce free men to become stool pigeons and informers. Good conscience in a bad cause is better than no conscience in a good one."

You were a member of the Dartmouth Board of Trustees for 30 years. During those decades you chaired no less than seven major committees and played a key role in long-range planning for the College. It is typical of you to have put through a revision of the length of service of Trustees, the first effect of which was to force your own resignation for having "served too long."

Your final major service as a Trustee was to chair the committee on coeducation. Your eloquent plea for the education of women will not be forgotten. It is appropriate that your College should honor you as we admit the first women undergraduates in Dartmouth history.

Those of us who have been privileged to serve with you on the Board of Trustees wish to recognize your life of devoted service by awarding you the honorary Doctorate of Laws.

You were born at Ogidi in Eastern Nigeria and were one of the first students to graduate from University College at Ibadan. You worked for many years in broadcasting and traveled widely, but you found your true medium to be the novel and your natural subject matter your own people, the Ibo.

An African writer faces the dilemma of using the native language with little impact outside his country or of having native ideas distorted through a strange language. You may be unique in your solution of the dilemma. You have modified English to suit its African surroundings. Your language is enriched by the use of Ibo idioms and metaphors; you have created an instrument powerful enough to capture the spirit and vitality of your people and at the same time analyze experiences that are important to all of mankind.

You wrote that "I would be quite satisfied if my novels did no more than teach my readers that their past—with all its imperfections—was not one long night of savagery from which the first Europeans acting on God's behalf delivered them." Your works have helped Africans to find a new pride in their history. At the same time you have helped the rest of us to understand the sensitivity of African culture and the serious damage inflicted by colonialism. Whether your books are read for their literary merit or as serious treatises on social problems, they have universally been acclaimed as masterpieces.

You were forced to lay down your pen during the cruel Biafran war. It is our hope that you may now take up that powerful weapon once again to continue your fight for understanding and the dignity of Man.

Dartmouth recognizes your unique contributions to the literature of the world by awarding you the honorary Doctorate of Letters.

Distinguished writer and editor, philosopher and political scientist. You were born in Hanover—not this Hanover, but the other one. You earned a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Heidelberg at the age of 22. You fled Germany in 1933, first to France and then to the United States.

You were the first woman ever appointed to the rank of Professor at Princeton University, and have gone on to a very distinguished academic career. You combine great intellectual power with admirable common sense. It is this combination that has made your books so influential on both sides of the Atlantic.

Ever since the appearance of Origins of Totalitarianism you have been recognized as one of the most original thinkers in Political Philosophy. You have shed important new light on such diverse topics as the rise of Communism and Nazism, the roots of violence, the nature of prejudice, honesty in government, and the allocation of guilt for the genocide of Jews. You are able to combine personal experience with deep historical scholarship to give life and meaning to an essay on the most complex of topics. You are certainly not afraid of creating controversy; indeed you seem to relish a good fight in a worthy cause.

Your running commentary on major events in Europe and the United States has forced us to reexamine our fundamental assumptions and our views of the nature of society. Yet, you who see so many failings in modern civilization never lose your faith in Man's ability to solve his problems.

Dartmouth College takes great pleasure and pride in awarding you the degree of Doctor of Letters, honoris causa.

You were born in Missouri, studied in Texas, and have chosen the whole earth plus the solar system as your field of expertise.

You first made your reputa- tion as a war correspondent in World War II. Even then you had to check on the news at first hand, though it meant manning a ,50-caliber machine gun or landing behind enemy lines.

You are a master of all media. You have a great zest for life. Whether you are racing a car, sailing in the Sound, competing in a game, or tearing up the dance floor, you live life to its fullest. It is that same enthusiasm that has made your news broadcasts incomparable. You are the commentator America believes.

You love racing by land and on the sea. But the race you enjoyed most .was the race to the moon. With typical dedication you insisted on becoming an expert on space travel before you agreed to cover the lunar missions. The rest of us depended on the Cronkite chronicles to understand the space saga.

A whole generation of Americans has grown up to believe that a political convention is unconstitutional unless it is described by Walter Cronkite. And that's the way it is Sunday, June 11, 1972.

It is a great pleasure to welcome you, who have influenced all our lives, into the Dartmouth family by awarding you the degree of Doctor of Letters, honoris causa.

You were born in Alabama in 1886, raised in New York City, educated at Harvard, and through a misunderstanding you entered the motion picture industry.

You are a historian of motion pictures who personal- ly witnessed the entire history of that art form. You saw your first motion picture in 1896. "The Great Train Robbery" was made the year you entered Harvard. You have since been able to observe almost every major development of the industry—usually from the inside.

It was your hope to direct motion pictures. Instead it was your destiny to change the direction of movies in the United States. Without your promotional skills America would never have noticed Mae West. As owner of the Rialto Theater you became a famed "Merchant of Menace." As a film importer you had the good judgment and courage to introduce such classics as "Open City" and "Paisan," which changed the tastes of the American moviegoer.

At age 80 you embarked on a new career, as a college professor. Of all your careers it may turn out to be your most successful one, as witnessed by the deep respect and affection of hundreds of Dartmouth students. They give eloquent testimony to your knowledge, wit, and incomparable talent as a story-teller.

There are many ways in which your career has differed from that typical in the movie industry. Most notable is the fact that you have been married to the same woman for 60 years. Since the early days when you marched with her in a suffragette parade, she has been your staunchest supporter, "your best critic and most severe friend."

Our students long ago adopted you into the Dartmouth family. We are hereby making the adoption official by awarding you the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa.

You graduated from Dartmouth, went to Dartmouth Medical School, and took your M.D. from Cornell. You took up a surgeon's scalpel and carved a path with it that led you to become the "top doctor" of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

Your academic career began at the State University of New York and led you to become Professor of Surgery at the University of Oklahoma. Your reputation as a leader in medicine in the Southwest was such that when a new medical school was established at the University of Arizona, you were chosen as its Dean. You not only helped to build an outstanding new professional school, but you took a deep interest in the problem of regional health care systems. You are equally effective whether dealing with colleagues, lay groups, or governmental agencies.

Your nomination as Assistant Secretary for Health was promptly and enthusiastically approved by the Senate. You recognize that while we have an extraordinarily competent medical system in the United States, it is not universally available, and its cost may put it beyond the reach of millions of people.

You have outlined a plan that would introduce a technological revolution in the delivery of health care. You advocate a comprehensive emergency care system, cooperative regional systems with shared data banks and blood banks, computer-controlled patient monitoring systems, and a far-reaching program to educate the public on the subject of health care. Your plan gives us new hope that adequate modern medical services may someday become available to all citizens.

Dartmouth College is happy to honor one of her own sons by awarding you the honorary Doctorate of Science.