Sweet, James Stouder 1918-2007

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born February 18, 1918, in Fort Wayne, IN: died of pneumonia, May 8, 2007, in Washington, DC. Editor and author. Sweet worked for government and private organizations as a researcher, information officer, editor, and writer. He graduated from DePauw University in 1940 before serving in North Africa and Europe with the U.S. Army during World War II. Returning home, he continued his education at the University of California at Los Angeles, taking a master's degree in American history in 1949, and a doctorate in European history in 1955. While studying for his Ph.D., he worked for the Library of Congress. During this time, he wrote research reports and prepared speeches for such politicians as John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and Hubert Humphrey. While still with the Library of Congress, he was named senior historian of the Legislative Review Service. Part of his work involved speech writing, and he would later say that he was proudest of two speeches he wrote for U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren. Both of these were clever attacks on Senator Joseph McCarthy and his Communist witch hunt with the House Un-American Activities Committee. In the late 1950s, Sweet was an assistant editor for the Encyclopedia Britannica in Chicago. Settling down there, he was a senior writer for the Portland Cement Association in the early 1960s and a science writer and editor for Northwestern University from 1966 to 1971. His last position was in the Office of Public Information at the University of Chicago, where he worked in Science and Information Services until his 1981 retirement.

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PERIODICALS

Washington Post, May 26, 2007, p. B6.