David W. Belin

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David W. Belin, of Des Moines and New York, was an American businessman, and was also noted for his public service. He was born in 1928 and died on January 17, 1999 in Rochester, Minnesota from head injuries sustained in a fall[1].

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[edit] Notable Actions

  • Belin served the Jewish community in many leadership positions.
  • A successful businessman, Belin owned a number of Midwestern publications and co-owned The Tribune in Ames, Iowa, with Michael Gartner, the former president of NBC News.

[edit] Government Service

Belin served in the army in Korea and in Japan.[2]

Belin was assistant counsel to the Warren Commission, which investigated President John F. Kennedy's assassination. He concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald had worked entirely on his own as Kennedy's assassin, which the commission affirmed in its final report. Belin stood by the findings of the Warren report until his death, and was known to become incensed at any mention of an assassination conspiracy[3]. As he lay in a coma in his final days, his friends would whisper conspiracy theories about the JFK assassination into his ear to confirm his unconsciousness by his unprecedented lack of response.[4]

Belin wrote two books on the JFK Assassination, including "Final Disclosure" in 1975.

Belin's former Warren Commission member and then-president Gerald Ford appointed him executive director to the Rockefeller Commission, which investigated CIA activities within the United States.

[edit] Belin Lectureship

In 1991, Belin established the David W. Belin Lectureship in American Jewish Affairs at his alma mater the University of Michigan as an academic forum for the discussion of contemporary Jewish life in the United States. Belin graduated from the University of Michigan's[1] College of Literature, Science and the Arts[2], Business School and Law School.

Past Belin lecturers have included Egon Mayer, Stephen J. Whitfeld, Arthur Green, Deborah Dash Moore, Alvin Rosenfeld, Paula Hyman, Jeffrey Gurock, Arnold Eisen, Sylvia Barack Fishman, Jonathan Sarna, Hasia Diner, Susan Martha Kahn, Riv-Ellen Prell and Andrew Heinze. Israeli scholar, Fred Lazin, will present the 2009 lecture in early March. The Belin lectures have been published annually by the University of Michigan Frankel Center for Judaic Studies[3].

[edit] References

  1. ^ Pace, Eric. "David W. Belin, Warren Commission Lawyer, Dies at 70." The New York Times (Jan 18, 1999): NA
  2. ^ Pace, Eric. "David W. Belin, Warren Commission Lawyer, Dies at 70." The New York Times (Jan 18, 1999): NA
  3. ^ Pace, Eric. "David W. Belin, Warren Commission Lawyer, Dies at 70." The New York Times (Jan 18, 1999): NA
  4. ^ Sullivan, Andrew. "The Lives They Lived: David W. Belin, b. 1928 - Leonard C. Lewin, b. 1916; The Paranoia Gap." The New York Times Magazine (Jan 2, 2000 pP32 col 1 (19 col): P32. General