Lefever, Ernest W. (1919- ).

Ernest Warren Lefever was born on November 12, 1919, in York, Pennsylvania. He was educated at Elizabethtown College, where he graduated with an A.B. in 1942. In 1945, he received a B.D. from Yale University, where he continued to study, receiving a Ph.D. in 1956. Lefever has worked in international affairs for nearly his entire life, beginning in the years following World War II, when he was a field secretary in Europe for the World's Alliance of YMCAs. Over the course of the next two decades, Lefever worked in international affairs at the National Council of Churches (1952-1954), Johns Hopkins University (1955-1956, 1960-1961), the University of Maryland (1956-1957), the Library of Congress (1957-1959), and for Senator Hubert Humphrey (1959-1960). Between 1964 and 1976, he was a member of the senior staff of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institute. In 1976, he helped found and became president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He remained president until 1989, when he became a senior fellow. He has been an adviser to Presidents Kennedy and Reagan. Lefever has written, co-authored, or edited twenty books and has frequently written articles for many of America's leading newspapers and magazines.

From the guide to the Ernest Warren Lefever papers, 1947-1948, (Manuscripts and Archives)

Biographical Note

• 1919 Nov. 12: Born, York, Pennsylvania
• 1945 - 1948 : Field Secretary, World Alliance of Young Mens' Christian Associations, United Kingdom and West Germany
• 1952 - 1954 : International affairs specialist, National Council of Churches
• 1956 - 1957 : Faculty, Department of Government, University of Maryland
• 1957: Author, Ethics and U.S. Foreign Policy
• 1957 - 1959 : Research staff, Acting Head, Foreign Affairs Division, Library of Congress
• 1959 - 1960 : Foreign affairs staff, Senator Hubert H. Humphrey
• 1960: Author, Profile of American Politics
• 1960 - 1961 : Research Associate, Washington Center for Foreign Policy Research, Johns Hopkins University
• 1961 - 1964 : Senior Staff, Institute of Defense Analyses, Washington
• 1962: Editor, Arms and Arms Control
• 1964 - 1976 : Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies, Brookings Institute
• 1965: Author, Crisis in the Congo
• 1967: Author, Uncertain Mandate: Politics of the U.N. Congo Operation
• 1970: Author, Spear and Scepter: Army, Policy and Politics in Tropical Africa
• 1972: Author, Ethics and World Politics
• 1974: Author, TV and National Defense: An Analysis of CBS News
• 1976 - : Founder and President, Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington, D.C.
• 1977: Author, Morality and Foreign Policy
• 1979: Author, Amsterdam to Nairobi: The World Council of Churches and the Third WorldAuthor, Nuclear Arms in the Third World: U.S. Policy DilemmaEditor, Will Capitalism Survive?
• 1980: Author, The CIA and the American Ethic
• 1981: Designate, Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs
• 1982: Author, The Apocalyptic Premise
• 1983: Author, Scholars, Dollars and Public Policy

From the guide to the Ernest W. Lefever papers, 1933-2007, (Hoover Institution Archives)