William Warren Scranton papers

William Warren Scranton was born on July 19, 1917, in Madison, Connecticut. His ancestors were New England colonial settlers, founders of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and prominent Pennsylvania businessmen with interests in iron and coal--the Lackawanna Iron and Coal Company--as well as utililities, and banking. The family were early Republican Party supporters and elected representatives. He attended private day school, preparatory schools in New England, and Yale University, receiving a B.A. in 1939. He entered Yale Law School in 1939, and completed his law training after World War II. Scranton enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1941 and served from 1942 to 1945 as an Air Transport Command pilot in the South Atlantic area and Africa.

During the war he married Mary Lowe Chamberlin. He returned to Yale Law School in 1945 and graduated in 1946. Through a partnership with a Scranton city law firm and through his family's business interests, Scranton became active in the northeastern Pennsylvania business community. He first worked with the International Textbook Company, a client of his law firm. Between 1947 and 1957 he served as an executive and director with many concerns in manufacturing, coal mining, railroads, banking, and broadcasting. During these years he also assumed leadership of community civic organizations and charities. Scranton entered public service in 1959 as President Dwight D. Eisenhower's appointee to the Office of Special Assistant to the Secretary of State. Scranton served Secretaries of State John Foster Dulles and Christian Herter by providing background briefings, managing the Secretary's office, and making arrangements for diplomatic meetings and conferences.

In 1960, Scranton ran as a Republican for the U.S. House of Representatives in the Tenth Pennsylvania District, defeating the Democratic incumbent, Stanley Prokop. In Congress, Scranton joined the House Banking and Currency Committee. He supported legislation to aid chronically depressed areas, to fund public works projects, to establish the Peace Corps, and to promote mining area reclamation. During his term in Congress he described himself as internationalist in foreign affairs, conservative fiscally, and liberal in domestic and social programs. In the final months of his term as 10th district representative, Scranton campaigned for the office of Governor of Pennsylvania. He was a compromise candidate among the Republican Party factions in the state. Ray Shafer, a state senator from Meadville, teamed with Scranton as the candidate for lieutenant governor. The Republican platform outlined specific programs stressing honest government and optimism over Pennsylvania's economic future. Scranton debated his Democratic Party opponent Richardson Dilworth on television and made a strong showing. He won by a plurality of 500,000 votes in a total vote of 4.5 million.

As Governor, Scranton sponsored fiscal and constitutional reforms, congressional reapportionment, conservation, social programs, and increased support for public schools and higher education. His administration made major strides in industrial development and economic diversification, development of state parks, and conservation of land and water resources. Scranton's program was most successful in winning legislative approval in 1963 and 1964, when Republicans were the majority in both houses of the state legislature. After that time, Democrats controlled the State Assembly, with the Republicans continuing control of the Senate. Though Scranton staff members actively campaigned beginning in 1963 for his nomination as the Republican Party candidate for President, Scranton refused for months to declare his candidacy for the nomination race. The failure of other moderate Republican candidates to contest the conservative candidate, Barry Goldwater, and Goldwater's vote in the U.S. Senate against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, prompted Scranton to announce his candidacy.

When Scranton finally declared his entry in the race on June 11, 1964, there were only four weeks remaining before the Republican National Convention. Leading moderate and liberal Republicans immediately adopted Scranton as their candidate, but in cross-country campaign trips he added few delegates to the number who first supported him. He also could not persuade pledged delegates at the Republican National Convention to switch their allegiances and vote for him. Goldwater won the nomination on the first ballot. In the aftermath of his brief campaign, Scranton paid off the debts incurred during his race.

Near the end of his term as Governor of Pennsylvania, Scranton announced at a press conference that he would never again run for public office. After leaving the Governor's Office, however, Scranton continued in public life. He was appointed to several important panels and task forces. He advised political leaders in both formal and informal ways. He also accepted several diplomatic assignments that brought him back to the same arena in which he first entered public service. In addition to these activities, Scranton also took up again his business interests, leadership in Scranton community affairs, and active assistance to a number of institutions, particularly schools and universities, in which he and his family had been connected.

Scranton had sought to convene a state constitutional convention during his term as governor. This gathering was held from December 1967 to February 1968, after his successor was elected. Scranton served as a delegate to the convention and co-chaired the Judiciary and Rules Committees. Soon after the convention, President Johnson appointed Scranton to the position of vice-chair of the National Advisory Panel on Insurance in Riot-Affected Areas. This was the first of several such appointments for Scranton from 1967 to 1974, including: the Chair of the President's Commission on Campus Unrest (1970), Director of the U.S. Railway Board (1974-1975), membership on the General Advisory Committee of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (1969-1976), membership on the President's Price Commission (1971-1972), membership on President Ford's transition team for establishing a new White House staff (1974), The President's Commission on White House Fellowships (1975-1979), and the Intelligence Oversight Board (1977-1981).

Scranton's role as a diplomat after leaving elective office included serving as President-elect Nixon's special envoy to the Middle East in 1968, during which Scranton's statement advocating a "more even-handed" approach to foreign relations in that region touched off a controversy in the United States. He also represented Nixon in 1968 on a fact-finding trip to Western Europe, where he met with several heads of state. Though he turned down six requests by Presidents for ambassadorial appointments, Scranton accepted an appointment as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations by President Ford in 1976 and served until 1977.

In addition to Scranton's involvement in these public offices, he spent much of his time after 1966 pursuing business, civic, and public policy interests. He was a member of the executive board of the Tri-Lateral Commission, a member of the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, and head of the National Municipal League, among many groups. He became a trustee of Yale University in 1967 and served several other educational institutions in a similar capacity, including the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Pittsburgh. Scranton also returned to his business interests after his term as governor. He served on the board of directors of the Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, Mutual of New York, Bethlehem Steel, The New York Times, Cummins Engine Company, Pan American Airways, International Business Machines Corporation, Mobil, H. J. Heinz Company, Sun Oil, Scott Paper, New York Life Insurance Company, Norton Simon Corporation, Fidelity Bank, and several businesses in the Scranton area.

William W. and Mary L. Scranton have maintained their residence in the Scranton area, although they have lived in Washington, D.C. and Harrisburg and California as well. They have four children: Susan, William, Joseph, and Peter.