June 20,1977
Page 19914
A TRIBUTE TO NILS A. LENNARTSON
Mr. MUSKIE Mr. President, Nils Lennartson, a longtime friend, died Memorial Day. It was my privilege to deliver the eulogy at a memorial service for him June 7 in Alexandria. Nils was a dedicated public servant who rose to the highest policymaking levels of government in a career spanning four administrations.
I know he had other friends in this Chamber. For those who did not know him, I ask unanimous consent that my remarks at the memorial service for Nil's Lennartson be printed in the RECORD at this point.
There being no objection, the eulogy was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
EULOGY TO NILS A. LENNARTSON
(By EDMUND S. MUSKIE)
"Nils A. Lennartson of Falmouth Foreside got his start in life from a 60 cent package of asparagus. He developed it into a one acre bed which yielded $250 to finance his first year at Bates College."
That is the way May Craig put it in 1953 when Nils became Assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury, George Humphrey.
Nils didn't know where the next buck would come from but, as he put it, "I wanted to say I'd been to college, even if I didn't get more than a semester."
Nils and I were freshmen together in 1932 — with comparable resources.
He washed dishes and swept the dormitories — and did his first newspaper bits for the Lewiston, Portland and Boston newspapers. I washed dishes, waited on tables and proctored in the dormitories.
He became a campus newspaperman.
I became a campus politician.
The college yearbook characterized Nils' four years very simply. "News is the manna of a day."
He was a newspaperman from the beginning — the cynical, cocky observer of the campus scene — a member of the "Bates student" staff all four years and editor in his senior year.
No one was too important to escape his needle. No campus institution or custom was beyond challenge.
The "Bates student" of his years crusaded for Sunday tennis, coeducational dining, a chapel discussion of pacifism. He complained about the unfairness of the rule for over cutting.
A member of the faculty described the paper as "a bit sensational."
As a fighting editor he fought against compulsory attendance at Chapel which he described as nothing more than social affairs where "my love sends out a sheepish early morning smile to my lady across the aisle six rows down."
He criticized "suicide football schedules" designed to clear up the debts of the athletic department — and New York University was dropped from the schedule.
He verbally spanked freshmen who broke the rules, saying — "bloated mentalities are as dangerous as bloated stomachs — and require the same treatment."
He championed the students — "two nights ago four Bates men may have disturbed the peace by singing at a late hour — downtown — that they should be insulted with obscene language by police officers for so doing was in no wise required."
His last editorial was typical. This headline tells the story:
"PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION REFUSES EDITOR'S RECOMMENDATION — LENNARTSON'S CANDIDATE REFUSED FOR NEW STUDENT EDITOR"
Nil's editorial comment:
"There should be some definition of powers in regard to the association and each "student" administration."
There was a thoughtful, intellectual side to his journalistic interests. Even before he joined the "Student," he became a member of the "Garnet," the college literary magazine — to which he was an outstanding contributor of poems and essays for four years.
He was brash, he was alive, he was articulate, he was respected. He travelled with the irreverent gang, he harmonized with the college quartet.
Nils and I lost touch over the next few years. In 1936 it was tough to get a job.
There was a stint with the Portland Press Herald.
Then a publicity job with the Maine Department of Agriculture.
Then with the AP covering the Maine Legislature.
Followed by another stint with the Press Herald at $20 per week.
It was a struggle — but he had always struggled. Typically, he used the struggle to sharpen his skills, to broaden his contacts. To prepare for the next opportunity.
And to court Emily. They were married — in my home town of Rumford, Maine — a week after Nils was commissioned a 2nd lieutenant in the Air Force.
Nils and I reestablished contact through Emily's mother, who was one of my clients following the war. I had frequent occasion to note and marvel at the warm, easy relationship between Nils, Emily, and Eula. They shared their homes in Falmouth Foreside and Virginia. Nils registered as a Republican after his marriage, but then I took my wife from a Republican family and converted her.
Nils moved from one success to another — in Republican and Democratic administrations:
Deputy Director of Public Relations, Air Force;
Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force;
Director of Public Information at Commerce;
Assistant to the Secretary of Treasury; and
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs.
1948-1965 — a long public career under such men as Steve Leo, Stu Symington and Tom Finletter at Air Force — Charles Sawyer, Sinclair Weeks at Commerce — George Humphrey at Treasury — McNamara at Defense.
Inspection trips to Hawaii, Africa, Europe, Greenland; highest level Air Force planning sessions; strategic discussions involving the Russian thrust during the cold war; business and labor relations in the '50's; economic and fiscal policies in the Eisenhower administration.
It was rather strange that the iconoclastic student editor of the '30's should have become so solidly entrenched in the establishment of the '60's. But it was not so strange.
He was tough minded, sharp, thorough, and knew his business. He had the intelligence to grasp the implications of policymaking at the highest levels — the integrity to be entrusted with confidential matters — and the skills to translate what he learned into the public information needs of his superiors. And always the inquiring mind and the sharp-eyed observer.
In whatever he did, he was loyal and devoted to his duties, as he was to his friends, as he was to Emily and her mother.
I am sure his closing years were warmly rewarding years. He loved his home in Virginia, his family life, his hobbies and his work with the railroads.
I did not have occasion in late years to share his thoughts about his life and what it had done for him — I like to think that lines he wrote during our college years in the '30's might still speak for him:
"NEGLECTED OPPORTUNITY"
It was out of a scrub expanse
Beyond the orchard there, which
Was then tall, fragrant pine, that
A half grown doe ventured
One time and cropped timidly
Down to about ninety yards from
Where I was nursing some pruning
Scars with wax. There, she
Finally noticed I wasn't just
Another tree and came to a slow halt;
Regarded me intently for an instant
With soft, melancholy eyes,
Then turned abruptly
And with twenty bounds and
A last flash of white tail was into
The Pines again.
She seemed so friendly there
For an instant, I've often
Imagined she might have
Stayed had I spoken.
I wish I had.
"WATCHING AN EVENING COME IN"
A blood red sun burned
Her last rays from below
The horizon in the west
Sending infinite shafts
Of crimson and yellow light
Into half the sky.
Birds called softly
In nearby woods, and stopped calling.
Lights came on
In darkness from
Nearby houses, warming
My soul, though my
Body was chilled.
I raised my
Eyes to my star
In East and
Was glad to be alive.
"IMMORTALITY"
A chubby little lad,
With a fist full of flow'rs,
Had been out in the grass
Through the long morning hours.
This little lad of nine,
Now he comes — Nevermore
But this precious mem'ry
I murmur o'er and o'er.
I said:
Aren't you a bit lonely
With just nothing to do?
He said:
No. I'm talking with God
And He answers me — too.
A chubby little lad
With a fist full of flow'rs—
Now he's roaming the grass
Through sweet unending hours.