Maurice Heenan

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Maurice Heenan CMG QC, was born in New Zealand on October 8, 1912. He attended Ashburton College, Canterbury College, and received his law degree from University of New Zealand. He married Klara Gabriela Stefania Ciho of Trencin,Bratislava, Czechoslovakia.

Heenan served as barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of New Zealand from 1937 to 1940. During WWII he served as a Major in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force [NZEF] from 1940 to 1945. After he was decommissioned, he applied at the Colonial Office in London and was posted to Palestine as Crown Counsel between 1946 and 1948. While in London he met his future wife and later visited her parents in Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia's democratically elected government was then overthrown by the Communists and they denied him entry when he wanted to go and marry her. With a lot of help, his future wife eventually managed to get out of the country and they were finally married in New York at 1060 Fifth Avenue - the residence of the Richard and Hemenway Family - and the newlyweds left, via New Zealand, for Hong Kong where he was appointed Solicitor General in 1961. He was soon made Her Majesty's Attorney General, serving until 1966, when he was invited to join the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs in New York.

He and his family moved to New Canaan, Connecticut. From 1973 to 1977 he served as General Counsel of UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency). The family's main residence is in Connecticut.