RIP

Ramsey Clark, attorney general under Lyndon Johnson, dies

APRIL 11, 2021 


Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark walks on Pennsylvania Avenue as thousands of protesters gather nearby to demonstrate against the Iraq War in Washington on September 15, 2007. File Photo by Alexis C. Glenn/UPI | License Photo

April 11 (UPI) -- Ramsey Clark, the attorney general under President Lyndon B Johnson for 22 months then became a civil rights attorney, has died at his home in New York City. He was 93.

Clark died on Friday, a family member, Sharon Welch, told The New York Times and The Washington Post.

In 1977, Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark swore in his son. Clark served until 1969, and then became a private practice attorney. His clients included former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, and the Harrisburg Seven, antiwar activists led by the Rev. Philip Berrigan, the radical Roman Catholic priest, and several followers of the Branch Davidian cult leader David Koresh.

As attorney general, Clark prosecuted Benjamin Spock, a pediatrician and best-selling author for conspiracy to aid draft resisters during the Vietnam War.

He later became a vocal critic of the war and other U.S. policies, including conflicts in Grenada, Libya, Panama and the Gulf War. In 1972, Clark met with Communist officials in Hanoi, the capital of North Vietnam.

He received a bachelor's degree from the University of Texas and a law degree from the University of Chicago, according to a Department of Justice biography.

Clark was appointed assistant U.S. attorney general of the Lands Division by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, when Clark was only 33 years old.

The United Nations General Assembly awarded in 2008 Clark its Prize in the Field of Human Rights, given every five years to human rights defenders.