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John William Gardner (October 8, 1912 – February 16, 2002) was Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) under President Lyndon Johnson. He was a strong advocate for citizen participation and founded Common Cause; he became known as "the father of campaign finance reform". He was the only Republican in Johnson's cabinet.

Education and military service

A native of California, Gardner attended Stanford University. As an undergrad he set several swimming records and won a number of Pacific Coast championships, and graduated "with great distinction." After earning a Ph.D. in Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley in 1938, Dr. Gardner taught at Connecticut College and at Mount Holyoke.

During the early days of World War II he was chief of the Latin American Section, Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service. He subsequently entered the United States Marine Corps and was assigned to the O.S.S., serving in Italy and Austria.

Early career

Gardner joined the staff of the Carnegie Corporation of New York in 1946, and in 1955 he became president of that group, and concurrently, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.[4] He also served as an advisor to the U.S. delegation to the United Nations and as a consultant to the U.S. Air Force, which awarded him the Exceptional Service Award in 1956.

Gardner was a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and of the Educational Testing Service and a director of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. He served as chairman of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund Panel on Education, and was chief draftsman of that group's widely circulated report, The Pursuit of Excellence.

Gardner authored books on improving leadership in American society and other subjects. He was also the founder of two prestigious fellowship programs, The White House Fellows and The John Gardner Fellowship at Stanford University and U.C. Berkeley. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964. In 1966 Gardner was awarded the Public Welfare Medal from the National Academy of Sciences.

Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW)

Gardner's term as Secretary of HEW was at the height of Johnson's Great Society domestic agenda. During this tenure, the Department undertook both the huge task of launching Medicare, which brought quality health care to senior citizens, and oversaw significant expansions of the landmark Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 that redefined the federal role in education and targeted funding to poor students. Gardner resigned as head of HEW because he could not support the war in Vietnam.

Gardner was featured on the cover and in an article of the January 20, 1967 Time magazine, and later that year also presided over the creation of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Later life

Gardner later served on the Stanford University Board of Trustees from 1968 to 1982. On August 18, 1970, Gardner founded Common Cause,[7][8] and also founded the Experience Corps in the same year.

In 1973, he received the S. Roger Horchow Award for Greatest Public Service by a Private Citizen, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.[10] In 1980–1983 he co-founded Independent Sector, which lobbies and does public relations work on behalf of tax-exempt organizations in order to retain the charitable deduction.

In September 2000, Gardner lent his name and support to the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities[11] at Stanford University, a center that partners with communities to develop leadership, conduct research, and effect change to improve the lives of youth.

Gardner died of cancer in San Francisco on February 16, 2002. He was buried in San Francisco National Cemetery.

Courtesy – Wikipedia

- J Gardner

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