John C. Whitehead

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John Cunningham Whitehead (born April 2, 1922 in Evanston, Illinois) is currently the chairman of the LMDC and World Trade Center Memorial Foundation.

Whitehead graduated from Haverford College in 1943 and served in the Navy during World War II, where he participated in the D-Day landing. Later he joined the prestigious New York investment bank of Goldman Sachs, rising to become chairman over a total period at the firm of 38 years; retiring in 1984 as Co-Chairman and Senior Partner.

He served as United States Deputy Secretary of State in Ronald Reagan's administration from 1985 to 1989 under George Schultz, and was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by President Reagan.

He is former Chairman of the Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the United Nations Association, and a former Chairman of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Harvard Board of Overseers. He is a former director of the New York Stock Exchange and Chairman Emeritus of The Brookings Institution.

He has a long association with the Rockefeller family, having held positions at various times with family-created institutions such as Rockefeller University, the Asia Society, the Lincoln Center Theater and the WTC Memorial Foundation. In these organisations and previously when he was for a period on the Trust Committee of Rockefeller Group, Inc., the real estate firm that previously owned and managed Rockefeller Center, he became closely associated with David Rockefeller.

As an alumnus of Haverford College in Pennsylvania, he has had the campus center and the chair of the philosophy department named after him. The John C. Whitehead School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University is also named after him. He received an honorary LL.D. from Bates College in 2004.

He also serves on the board of the International Rescue Committee, an international human rights orginazation. In 1987, he was awarded the IRC's Freedom Award, along with Elie Weisel. Other recipients of the award have included Winston Churchill, Hubert Humphrey, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, John McCain, Lech Wałęsa, Hamid Karzai, Madeleine Albright, and Václav Havel. Whitehead is an Eagle Scout and recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award. He has been Chairman of the Financial Services Volunteer Corps since July, 2005.