Sorenson,+Theodore+C.

Biographical Information:
Dates: 1928 - 2010 Dates in Ridgefield: 1972 nonfiction, politics, history attorney, presidential adviser, member of Carter's Presidential Advisory Committee for Trade Negotiations, member of Clinton's President's Commission on White House Fellowships “I’m young enough to think I’ll be back in government,” Theodore C. Sorensen told //The Ridgefield Press// in 1972, shortly after moving to Bennett’s Farm Road (he later bought a weekend home in Bedford, N.Y., lived in New York City, and was an attorney in there). One of President John F. Kennedy’s closest advisers, Mr. Sorensen headed Mr. Kennedy’s staff for the eight years that Kennedy was a U.S. Senator, and then spent three years as the President’s Special Counsel on Domestic Affairs. Five years after the interview, President Jimmy Carter nominated Mr. Sorensen to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency, but after a storm of protest connected with charges that he had leaked classified information as a Kennedy adviser, Mr. Sorensen withdrew. However, the next year, President Jimmy Carter named him to the Presidential Advisory Committee for Trade Negotiations, and he was involved in the late 1970s’ negotiations that led to turning the Panama Canal over to Panama in 1999. He served President Bill Clinton as a member of the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships and has endowed a grant of his own: the Theodore C. Sorensen Research Fellowship at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston to help scholars of domestic policy, political journalism, polling, and similar subjects. In 2010, President Barack Obama awarded him the 2009 Humanities Medal; the citation read, “for advancing our understanding of modern American politics. As a speech writer and advisor to President Kennedy, he help craft messages and policies, and later, gave us a window into the people and events that made history.” Mr. Sorensen wrote several books, including //Kennedy//; //The Kennedy Legacy;// and //Watchmen in the Night: Presidential Accountability after Watergate//. **Titles (partial): ** //Kennedy, // 1965 //Watchmen in the Night: Presidential Accountability After Watergate, // 1974 //The Kennedy Legacy, // 1993 //Decision-Making in the White House: The Olive Branch or the Arrows, // 2005 //Counselor: A Life on the Edge of History, //2008 --Sources: Notable Ridgefielders–Jack Sanders; //New York Times// obituary, October 31, 2010; //Ridgefield Press// obituary;[| www.whitehouse.gov]; Amazon.com