Brown, John Lackey, 1914-

John Lackey Brown was born April 29, 1914, in Ilion, N. Y., to Leslie Beecher Brown, a businessman; and his wife, Katherine Lackey. He was educated at Hamilton College, the École des Chartes, the Sorbonne, and the Catholic University of America, from which he received his PhD in 1939. Dr. Brown was an instructor in Romance languages at Catholic University from 1939 to 1941. During the Second World War, he served as assistant chief of foreign publications in the Office of War Information (1942-43); and as a member of the staff of the Office of Strategic Services (1943-45). For some years after the war he resided in Paris, travelling extensively throughout Western Europe as European editor for Houghton-Mifflin Company, and as a correspondent of the Sunday edition of the New York times. From 1949 until 1962 Dr. Brown worked for the U.S. government in a number of capacities, including director of the Information Division of the Economic Cooperation Administration, chief of regional services for the U.S. Information Service at the U.S. Embassy in Paris and cultural attaché to the U.S. embassies in Brussels, Belgium and Rome, Italy. From 1964 to 1968 he served as counselor for cultural affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, Mexico. An extremely rich and accomplished academic career comprises the other portion of Dr. Brown's diverse professional life. From 1962 to 1963 he was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn. Over the years Dr. Brown has lectured on American-European literary and intellectual relations at the Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. State Dept. and at many American universities, including Harvard, Rutgers, Saint Louis, Colorado, and Yale. From 1966 to 1967 he was the Barry Bingham Distinguished Professor of Humanities at the University of Louisville. In 1968 Dr. Brown returned to the Catholic University of America as professor of comparative literature in the graduate school. His lecture circuit extended to Canada (1970-71) and academic institutions around the world, including the Institute of Anglo-American Studies of the National University of Mexico (1966-68); the Institut catholique in Paris (1969); and the University of Lisbon, where he was Senior Fulbright Professor (1979-80). Dr. Brown published many academic works on comparative literature as well as contributing many articles to scholarly journals in that subject area. His literary interests extended to writing poetry, his own work having been published under the following titles: Signs (1956); Weights and measures (1958); Another language (1961); Numina (1969); Tributes (1980); Shards (1982); Celebrations (1990); and Awakenings (1995). Awards and honors presented to Dr. Brown include Decorated Commander, Chevaliers du Tastevin (Burgundy, France), 1953; Grand Prix de la Critique from Syndicat des critiques, 1954, and Le Grand Ordre des Coteaux (Champagne), 1973. He was married to Simone-Yvette L'Evesque with whom he had two sons Michel-Simon and John Halit. John Lackey Brown died on Nov. 22, 2002 in Washington, D.C.