Lord family

The Lord family is a Hartford and New York family of lawyers, textile merchants, United Nations delegates and diplomats. Its New England founder, Thomas Lord, arrived in 1635 and settled among the followers of Thomas Hooker at Cambridge and then at Hartford. Antony C. Sutton places the family among the old-line families of the Skull and Bones, with a chart label reading "LORD FAMILY (1635, Cambridge, Mass.)," and names the New York law firm Lord, Day and Lord as "dominated by the Lord family."¹ The family's best-known public figure is Winston Lord, president of the Council on Foreign Relations from 1977 to 1985 and ambassador to China from 1985 to 1989.²

Thomas Lord and the Hartford settlers

The 1892 family genealogy records that Thomas Lord, aged fifty, was registered on April 29, 1635 for transportation to New England on the ship Elizabeth and Ann, with his wife Dorothy, aged forty-six, and seven children. The entry cites Hotten's Original Lists.³ Savage's genealogical dictionary gives the same ship and year, and says Thomas stopped at Boston or Cambridge for a year or more before settling at Hartford. Savage records the eldest son, Richard Lord, at Cambridge by 1632, admitted a freeman there on March 4, 1635, and sent to Hartford with Hooker in 1636 as an original proprietor. Savage adds that Richard was the captain relied on, with John Pynchon, to secure the regicides William Goffe and Edward Whalley in New England. Richard died at New London on May 17, 1662. His son Richard married Mary Smith in 1665 and was lost at sea in 1685, and the widow married Dr. Thomas Hooker in 1686.⁴

Sutton's chart gives the Lord settlement as Cambridge in 1635, and his text says Thomas Lord left Essex in 1635 in a company led by Hooker and settled at what is now Hartford.¹ The 1892 genealogy traces the line through Thomas Lord's son William, his grandson Thomas (born 1645) and his great-grandson Joseph (born 1697) to Capt. Daniel Lord (born 1736), who married his first cousin Elizabeth Lord. Their son Dr. Daniel Lord settled at Stonington and married Phebe Crary, and removed with his family to New York in 1797.⁵

Daniel Lord and the founding of the law firm

The New York lawyer Daniel Lord was born at Stonington in December 1794, the only child of Dr. Daniel and Phebe (Crary) Lord. The Yale obituary record for 1868 states that he began his law studies at the Litchfield Law School, finished them in the office of George Griffin in New York, and was admitted to the bar in 1817. The same record states that he "stood in the foremost rank in his profession," steadily refused all public offices, and was engaged in "many of the most important cases of his day." He graduated from Yale University in 1814, married in 1818 Susan, daughter of Lockwood DeForest, and died in New York on March 4, 1868. One of his sons, George DeForest Lord, graduated from Yale in the class of 1854.⁶

The 1892 genealogy lists Daniel Lord's children as Daniel DeForest, Phoebe Lucretia, John Crary, James Couper, Sarah, Edward Crary and George DeForest Lord, the last married to Frances Shelton. Phoebe Lucretia married Henry Day, and the genealogy names among their children a George DeForest Lord Day. A grandson, Daniel Lord Jr., is described there as "one of the firm of Lord, Day and Lord, successors of Hon. Daniel Lord."⁷

Henry Day was born at South Hadley, Massachusetts in 1820, graduated from Yale in 1845, studied at Harvard Law School and practiced in New York. According to the 1897 biographical compendium Prominent Families of New York, he became in 1849 "a partner in the legal firm of Lord, Day & Lord, of which the distinguished Daniel Lord was the senior member." The same sketch says Day became attorney and a director of the Equitable Life Assurance Society and a director of the Consolidated Gas Company, the Mercantile Trust Company and the Lawyers' Title and Guarantee Company, that the legal affairs of the estates of Samuel F. B. Morse, Edward Morgan and the Astors were entrusted to him, and that at his death in 1893 he was the sole survivor of the original members of the firm, with which he had been connected for nearly forty-five years. His son George Lord Day, educated at Princeton University, also became a member of the firm and retired after a hunting accident in 1894.⁸

Sutton's text names George DeForest Lord (initiated 1854) as the first Lord initiated into the Order and states that he and his father, Daniel Lord, established the firm. Sutton wrote that its present-day clients were the New York Times and the Rubin Foundation, which he describes as one of the financial supporters of the Institute for Policy Studies, and, in his section on the law, that "the major establishment law firms in New York are saturated with The Order," naming Lord, Day and Lord first.⁹

Lord, Day and Lord in the twentieth century

The firm's partners recorded in the successive editions of Who's Who in America include Lucius Hart Beers, a member of the firm, a director of Lawyers Title and Guaranty Company, Lawyers Trust Company and the 25 Broadway Corporation, and a member of the advisory board of the National Surety Company.¹⁰ Howard Mansfield (Yale 1871) is listed as a member of the firm from 1901, counsel for the Cuba Company and the Cuba Railroad Company from 1900, and trustee and treasurer of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.¹¹ Randolph E. Paul, the tax lawyer who became general counsel of the Treasury Department in 1942, is recorded in the National Cyclopaedia of American Biography as becoming a member of Lord, Day and Lord in 1938.¹²

The firm kept a Washington address. The Federal Bureau of Investigation's Silvermaster file for December 1945 to January 1946 reports that Lauchlin Currie arrived in Washington from New York on December 5, 1945 and stayed at 1614 I Street, N.W. A Bureau agent determined on December 26 that the address was "apparently a law firm wherein several lawyers have a common reception room," and the directories available to the Washington Field Office listed at that address Lord, Day and Lord, lawyers, and Randolph Paul, lawyer, among others. On January 8, 1946 agents took up surveillance at Paul's office at the same address and saw Currie enter. The same report carries a background note on Paul from a 1940 investigation of his application for a Justice Department judicial post, which records that he had been associated with Lord, Day and Lord and that Lord, Day and Lord "also have offices at" the I Street address.¹³ Paul had left the firm for Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison in March 1944.¹²

Aleister Crowley's statement of October 11, 1918, as summarized by Bureau of Investigation Agent Frank X. O'Donnell, says that the funds of the Order he described were deposited with the Title Guarantee and Trust Company in New York and had come through the law firm of Lord, Day and Lord from the sale of Crowley's property in Scotland.¹⁴

Herbert Brownell moved to Lord, Day and Lord in 1929 and became a partner in 1932, according to the Justice Department's biography. He served as chairman of the Republican National Committee and was appointed Attorney General by Dwight D. Eisenhower on January 21, 1953, serving until November 8, 1957.¹⁵

The Onassis shipping inquiry

In 1958 a special subcommittee of the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries examined the "trade-out and build" activities of the Onassis shipping companies. Aristotle Onassis testified that he had consulted many law firms about the Shipping Act of 1916 requirement that an American citizen hold control of vessels under the American flag, and when Representative Herbert Zelenko asked whether Lord, Day and Lord was among them, Onassis answered: "Lord, Day & Lord, Mr. George Lord was the highest authority in admiralty law in the United States, and one in the world." Asked whether Brownell was a member of that firm, Onassis answered that he was. Zelenko observed that Brownell was the man who "later became Attorney General and you were indicted by him."¹⁶

Brownell appeared before the subcommittee. His statement said that from 1948 to 1950 Onassis, for himself and certain shipping companies, consulted Lord, Day and Lord on questions of interpretation of the Shipping Act, "the late Mr. George DeForest Lord being the partner in charge," that Mr. Lord died in February 1950 and that by June 1950 the firm ceased to advise Onassis. He added that the firm did not advise Onassis at the time of the 1951 applications to the Maritime Commission on which the later indictment was based, and that he took no part in the Justice Department's handling of the cases after becoming Attorney General. He also stated that he approved, with the recommendations of the Civil and Criminal Division heads, the December 1955 disposition of the civil and criminal cases against the Onassis group, and that he became counsel to Lord, Day and Lord in November 1957. Under questioning he agreed that as a member of the firm he shared in the fees and was responsible for the firm's opinions, and that he had testified as a defense witness in 1954 in United States v. Philadelphia Marine, another prosecution brought by his department, about a legal opinion given by the firm in 1948.¹⁷ The Yale obituary record of 1868 names a George DeForest Lord, a son of Daniel Lord, in the class of 1854; the hearing names the partner in charge of the Onassis matter as the late Mr. George DeForest Lord, who died in February 1950.

The Times, Sullivan and the Pentagon Papers

In the Times libel appeal New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964), the United States Reports list Herbert Wechsler as arguing the cause for the Times, with the notation "With him on the brief were Herbert Brownell, Thomas F. Daly, Louis M. Loeb, T. Eric Embry, Marvin E. Frankel, Ronald S. Diana and Doris Wechsler." Brownell and Louis Loeb are the Lord, Day and Lord partners Time later named in connection with the Times.¹⁸

Time reported on August 2, 1971 that Lord, Day and Lord had been corporate counsel to the Times for twenty-three years and that, when the Times fought the Pentagon Papers case to the Supreme Court, the firm "played no part." According to Time, the firm felt strongly that the paper should not publish the classified material; when Times executives debated the series in spring 1971, partner Louis Loeb "repeatedly advised that publication would be improper and might be illegal," while the Times's general counsel, James Goodale, disagreed. Time quoted Goodale: "Lord, Day & Lord backed out on us," and "We had to get another law firm at the last minute." It attributed the stated conflict of interest to Brownell, who "has long been associated with Richard Nixon, John Mitchell and William Rogers" and who, as Eisenhower's Attorney General, "supervised the drafting of the current classification regulations." The firm weighed, the magazine reported, whether to inform the government of the Times's intention to publish, and decided not to. The Times then gave its litigation to Cahill, Gordon, Sonnett, Reindel and Ohl, whose lawyers, with Alexander Bickel of Yale, represented the paper in the case.¹⁹

William Galey Lord and the Yale societies

Charles Edwin Lord of Tarrytown, New York, and his wife Lucie-Taylor (Weart) Lord had at least two sons who went to Yale. The elder, William Galey Lord, was born in Tarrytown on July 1, 1901, took an A.B. at Yale in 1922 and married Frances Norton in 1925. The Who's Who in Commerce and Industry entry records him as a salesman for Galey & Lord, Inc., of New York from 1923, vice president from 1933, a director from 1934 and president from 1943, president of the National Federation of Textiles from 1942, and a member of the Board of Economic Warfare. His children are listed as Sheridan Norton and Charles Edwin II.²⁰

The Yale Banner and Pot Pourri for 1921 to 1922 lists William G. Lord as class secretary, chairman of the class book committee, class historian and business manager of the yearbook. Under the heading "Senior Society," without naming the society, it prints fifteen names including William Galey Lord, a list that matches the 1922 class given by Sutton.²¹ Sutton's index and Carroll Quigley's list of members both give William Galey Lord the class of 1922.²²

A company of the same name, Galey & Lord, Inc., was incorporated in Delaware in 1987 to acquire in February 1988 the Blends Apparel and Prints divisions of Burlington Industries. Its 1996 annual report describes it as a maker of cotton and cotton blend apparel fabrics.²³

Oswald Bates Lord and Mary Pillsbury Lord

Oswald Bates Lord, born March 15, 1903, the younger son, graduated from Yale in 1926. The Yale Banner and Pot Pourri for that year prints his name in a "Senior Society" list with Daniel Allen James Davis Bronson Jr., Henry Stetson Crosby, Reginald Dean Root and others, which matches Sutton's 1926 class. It also lists him as business manager of the Yale Daily News under chairman Carlos French Stoddard Jr., and as chairman of the academic senior class book.²⁴ Sutton's index lists "1926 Oswald Bates Lord ... = Mary Pillsbury (of Pillsbury flour family) ... son is Winston Lord," and Quigley's list carries "Oswald B. Lord FR/S&B 1926."²²

Mary Stinson Pillsbury was born on November 14, 1904, a daughter of Charles Stinson Pillsbury and Helen Pendleton Winston and a granddaughter of Charles A. Pillsbury. Vogue announced the engagement in October 1929 and reported in January 1930 that on December 7 Oswald Bates Lord, son of Charles E. Lord, and Mary Stinson Pillsbury had married at Minneapolis. Her brother was Philip W. Pillsbury.²⁵ The 1978 Associated Press obituary names Oswald as a New York merchant.²⁶ In 1970 Macmillan published Exit Backward, Bowing, credited to Oswald Bates Lord "with the advice and dissent of Mary Pillsbury Lord," with drawings by Roy Doty.²⁷

Mary Pillsbury Lord was active in the Eisenhower campaign in 1951 and 1952, according to the finding aid for her oral history at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library. She served as United States representative to the United Nations Human Rights Commission from 1953 to 1961, as an alternate representative to the United Nations General Assembly from 1953 to 1959, and as a delegate to the General Assembly in 1958 and 1960.²⁸ Her first instruction came from John Foster Dulles's department. A memorandum of March 26, 1953 from Assistant Secretary John D. Hickerson and Legal Adviser Herman Phleger proposed that "Mrs. Oswald B. Lord point out in the Commission" that the United States considered there were more effective ways to promote the Charter's human rights objectives than drafting the proposed Covenants on Human Rights, and that the Commission give its attention to other means, among them world-wide surveys by a rapporteur on freedom of religion and the right to a fair trial.²⁹ Dulles recommended a presidential message for the April 7 opening of the Commission's Geneva session, and Eisenhower's message of April 7, 1953 named "Mrs. Oswald B. Lord, the new Representative of the United States."³⁰ A Time report of November 23, 1953 identified her as the United States representative on the Commission on Human Rights.³¹

Her oral history, recorded for the Columbia University oral history project by John T. Mason Jr. in 1967 to 1969, runs to 429 pages in the finding aid. The first interview covers her first meeting with Eisenhower, her service as assistant director of civil defense for New York, New Jersey and Delaware, the advisory committee on women in the Army and the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, a trip to Europe to visit the Women's Army Corps, William J. Donovan, pre-convention work for Eisenhower, UNICEF, the United Nations covenants on human rights, Eleanor Roosevelt and Marietta Tree.²⁸ In 1965 she sat on the panel of judges for the Federal Woman's Award.³² She died of cancer on Friday, July 21, 1978, at the age of seventy-three.²⁶

Winston Lord

Winston Lord was born in New York City on August 14, 1937, the son of Oswald Bates Lord and Mary Pillsbury Lord.³³ A State Department biography issued in 1993 records a Yale B.A., magna cum laude, in 1959 and an M.A. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1960, service as a Foreign Service officer from 1961 to 1967, the Defense Department's Policy Planning Staff in International Security Affairs from 1967 to 1969, and the National Security Council staff from 1969. It gives his later posts as chairman of the National Endowment for Democracy, vice chairman of the International Rescue Committee and chairman of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's National Commission on America and the New World, and says he met his wife, Bette Bao Lord, while both were students at the Fletcher School.³⁴ Sutton's index and Quigley's list both give him the class of 1959; Quigley's entry reads "Winston Bao Lord BB/S&B 1959/TC."²² The Trilateral Commission page lists him among its North American members.

The Foreign Relations of the United States volume on China lists him as a member of the Office of International Security Affairs in the Department of Defense until 1969, a member of the National Security Council Planning Group, and from 1971 a member of the NSC staff for United Nations affairs.³⁵ On April 17, 1971 Lord sent Henry A. Kissinger a seven-page memorandum listing the major contacts between the United States and the People's Republic of China through Pakistan, Romania and other channels.³⁶ On June 21, 1971 Kissinger, Lord and the Pakistani ambassador Agha Hilaly met at the White House, where Hilaly handed over two notes in the exchange that arranged Kissinger's trip to China.³⁷ Lord was one of the four Americans who met Premier Chou En-lai in Beijing on July 9, 1971, with Kissinger, John Holdridge and Richard Smyser; Lord, Holdridge and Smyser prepared the transcripts, according to Lord's memoranda to Kissinger of July 29, August 6 and August 12.³⁸

On October 21, 1971, in Beijing, Kissinger said of CIA agents, "Most write long, incomprehensible reports and don't make revolution," and added, "They are mostly from Yale and they don't have the people." Chou asked, "He is from Yale [pointing to Winston Lord]?" Kissinger answered, "Does he look like a revolutionary?"³⁹

Lord was director of the Policy Planning Staff at the State Department from October 12, 1973 to January 20, 1977.⁴⁰ In November 1973 he prepared the briefing papers for Kissinger's trip to Beijing, which ran from November 10 to 14. The record of the Beijing talks of November 11 lists him as director of planning and coordination among the American participants, with Kissinger, Holdridge, David Bruce, chief of the United States Liaison Office in China, and Robert McCloskey, the State Department press spokesman.⁴¹

He was president of the Council on Foreign Relations from 1977 to 1985. The Council's annual report for July 1, 1984 to June 30, 1985 lists "Winston Lord, President, 1977-1985" on its staff page, and in a letter dated August 19, 1985 David Rockefeller wrote of "wishing Winston and Bette well as they embark on their challenging new career," linking it to Lord's role as "the President's emissary to the People's Republic of China."⁴² Sutton's 1983 text states that David Rockefeller is not a member of the Order "but the present CFR chairman, Winston Lord, is," and his chart carries the caption "Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations (1983)."⁴³

Lord was ambassador to China from November 6, 1985 to April 23, 1989, and Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs from April 22, 1993 to February 18, 1997.⁴⁰ The Senate proceedings of the 99th Congress record the nomination of Winston Lord, of New York, to be ambassador to the People's Republic of China, and the 1993 State Department biography records that the Senate confirmed him as Assistant Secretary on April 21, 1993.³⁴⁴⁴ Bette Bao Lord was described as chairman of Freedom House in the 1994 and 1998 press; in 1994 the Jordan Times quoted her as Freedom House chairwoman at a news conference on the organization's annual survey.⁴⁵

Other Lords in the Order

Sutton's index lists the Lords of the Order as George DeForest Lord (initiated 1854), Franklin Atkins Lord (1898), William Galey Lord (1922), Oswald Bates Lord (1926), Charles Edwin Lord II (1949) and Winston Lord (1959).⁹ Quigley's list gives "Lord S&B 1854," William Galey Lord and Oswald B. Lord of the classes of 1922 and 1926, and Winston with the middle name "Bao," the middle name of his wife.²²

A Charles E. Lord served as Acting Comptroller of the Currency in 1981: he signed as such in the Federal Register on November 24, 1981 and testified as such before a Senate panel on October 30, 1981. Ronald Reagan nominated a Charles E. Lord of the District of Columbia to be first vice president and vice chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the United States, and the Senate Banking Committee held a hearing on the nominations of Charles E. Lord and James E. Yonge in 1982.⁴⁶ The Council's 1984 to 1985 membership list includes a "Charles E. Lord" on page 127.⁴⁷ Sutton's chart caption names a Charles Edwin Lord as Acting Comptroller of the Currency in 1981.⁴⁸ Charles Edwin Lord II, of the Yale class of 1949, is recorded as a son of William Galey Lord. Sutton's chart caption gives the name of the Acting Comptroller of the Currency of 1981 as Charles Edwin Lord, the name under which his index lists the class of 1949 member.