Laughter with - but not at

Clifton R. Wharton, Jr.

I first met Don McLean in 1957. He was working with John D. Rockefeller, 3rd, and I had just joined the Agricultural Development Council, an organization Mr. Rockefeller had set up to strengthen the rural social sciences in Asia. During the early days of our friendship I learned that Don was warm, sincere, direct, honest, and unfailingly courteous with people from all walks of life. I marveled at his unassuming personality and his ability to subordinate his ego within the context of his role. He performed superbly, of course, providing wise counsel and advice at all times.

Over the years, a quality I came to appreciate particularly in Don was his great sense of humor. One of my many wonderful memories is of the story he loved to tell, dating from the early 1960’s. On a flight from United States to Asia, he had a chance to sit next to a new ADC visiting professor who was on his way to his university assignments abroad. The professor did not know Don. For the entire flight, Don quizzed and probed the professor about the Agricultural Development Council. What was it? What would the professor's role be? I can still imagine the twinkle must've brightened his eye: "So you say this is one of those do-gooder organizations of the Rockefeller's? Come on - what are they really up to over there? You don't really expect all this academic bushwah to fill peasants stomachs do you?"

And then how Don must have laughed with - but not at - his new acquaintance when he finally confessed who he was.

Don had an incomparable way with people, along with a knack for getting right to the heart of any problem or issue. Once he had made up his mind about something, he liked to put his decisions into action without delay. I would go to him for advice or to sound him out on some proposal proposed solution to a problem. "Okay, Cliff," he would respond. "Are we buying or selling?” And off we would go on our joint crusade. 

Don was with the "natural aristocracy” -the elite of intelligence, energy, and humaneness. He had several careers - with the ADC, the Population Council, the Asia Society, the Magsaysay Foundation, the Leahy Clinic Medical Center, his beloved Andover. In each he unfailingly distinguished himself. In his quiet way he made the world a little better place to live in. 

As for me, I respected Don’s talents, appreciated his support, treasured his friendship. I am the better for having had the privilege to know and work with him. Like so many others whose lives he touched, I miss Don McLean.

Clifton R. Wharton, Jr. was Vice President of the Agricultural Development Council. He has served on the staffs of several universities and agencies around the world, was President of Michigan State University 1970 - 1978 and since then he has been Chancellor of the 64 campus State University of New York system. He has written and spoken widely, and serves on the boards of several corporations as well as the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Rockefeller Foundation of which he is past Chairman.

He gloried in the tactics of a worthwhile cause

Theodore R. Sizer

“Meet me at the Club,” he’d say; and a luncheon date and time would be set. Earlier, when Don was at the Lahey Clinic in Boston, the “Club” had in fact been Joseph’s Restaurant, on the corner of Dartmouth and Newbury Streets. Later it was the Andover Inn.

A splash of wine would start it off, and stories. About General Lucius D. Clay for whom Don worked after the War and whom he admired more than any other man. Or about the Ramon Magsaysay awards that he had engineered in the Philippines. Or about the politics of Massachusetts medicine. Whatever the intended agenda, institutional or personal, it would come out gradually, Don sensing just when to get on with that particular business. The talk would be easy, but direct, with Don’s Yale Law School and Millbank, Tweed training creeping out with apt questions, always interspersed with more anecdotes. Henry Stimson. Amherst College fraternities. Potton, the McLean sanctuary in Quebec. Agriculture and population policy in the Third World. Doshisha University and Otis Cary. The Overlook Hospital in Summit, New Jersey, John Kemper.

Then more questions. What will happen if…? Do we know enough about…? Have you checked this with Mel and Tim? Is Fred doing a study on that? By desert, the questions would merge into advice, and the language used was plain, even tart. They can’t do that because it’s unworthy. He’ll just have to pull his socks up. Don’t take a lead of first until you know where second base is.

The issues would take form, but their specifics were left deliberately dangling. Don gave his lunch mate the gratification of the final summary. Then Henry would bring coffee, and more stories would follow. And always there was the warm expectation of another luncheon soon at the Club.

Donald Holman McLean, JR. Son of a Congressman and Judge, he cared about getting things done. Weather the matter was as subtile as delineating the functions of an occidental International Hose in an oriental land or as politically Byzantine as moving a large medical facility from one city to another, Don gloried in the tactics of a worthwhile cause. Careful control of the facts was part of it; he learned well the virtues of thorough staff studies in his years of association with John D. Rockefeller, 3rd.

Knowing the people involved was equally critical. Don cared passionately for institutions, but he knew well that they were at their center both a cluster of ideas and a congeries of people, and that institutional decisions would ultimately be made by those peoples’ hearts as well as heads. One needed to know how others felt as well as thought.

Timing was also crucial in McLean’s repertoire. He knew when it was time to do a year’s work in a month, or let what appeared to be a simple issue marinate for weeks, off to the side even if not forgotten.

These tactics were but a means, of course. The ends were the key. Support of the institutions which were the focus of Don’s life became (albeit in a strongly secular sense) a holy purpose. No institution was holier than that of family, and while Don kept his privacy here, his friends readily sensed his intense commitment to wife, children, and grandchildren, to roots, to obligations. His marriage with Martha - two vivid personalities in serene and secure joining - was very special. However family customs may shift in our culture, the loyal vitality lived out by Don and Martha expresses humanity at its best. 

Don’s loyalty and persistent persuasiveness affected other institutions too. Some were primarily ideas, such as a worthy American role in postwar Germany and a philanthropy that served a global public interest. Others were formal entities as well as ideas - the Lahey Clinic, Amherst College, Phillips Academy.

No person could care more for the place where we now gather than did Don. He cared enough for Andover to change it, to change its form while he protected it substance, the ideas at its core. The founders ideology - a "free, public school or academy," and especially that imbedded in the Paul Revere motto, “non sibi,” - was the constant. Don't felt that the true loyalist obligation was to fashion and refashion a contemporary expression of an enduring, noble ideology. In many ways Don's memories, his history, shaped his character. He talked often of the past, and especially of the men and women who had moved him. But he never became their prisoners. 

And so we hope it will be for us, Don McLean’s lunch mates, his friends and family. His nicely balanced mixture of well-defined ends and carefully crafted means and his witness to loyalty - loyalty whose restless quality was a virtue - he touched us greatly. For us he was a great man. He had Lucius Clay; we have Don to claim.

He'll be uneasy with that word “great," though. To him it would sound too rigid, too Napoleonic. The better word which crap most often across the lunch table was the term "worthy." A worthy idea. A worthy person, someone up to the standard of the idea to which loyalty was expected. Don would have us be worthy, and our lives were changed because we wanted him to find us worthy. We knew, at those lunch table talks and elsewhere, that we were the beneficiaries of the loyalty of the profoundly worthy man.

Theodore R Sizer was headmaster a Phillips Academy in the 1970s. He had been Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Chairman of a" Study of High Schools," and the author of numerous articles and books.

A Resolution

Trustees of Phillips Academy

Be it resolved that the Trustees record their deep respect for the leadership, the wisdom, and the unswerving loyalty of Donald H McLean Jr. Graduate of Phillips Academy, Special Assistant to General Lucius D. Clay in the military occupation of Germany after World War II, counselor to John D Rockefeller, 3rd, and leader of the Lahey Clinic, he also fashioned a distinctive career as an Andover alumnus,  Alumni Councillor, campaign chairman, trustee, and President of the Board of Trustees. It is the latter role which we would address in this resolution.

He treated this body and its individual members with equal parts of serious respect and good humor. He thought of us as the members of a club, a club whose sole duty was the discharge of trusteeship in an intelligent, conscientious, and consistent manner. But it was a club whose responsibilities included pleasure along with duty - the pleasure of friendship, the pleasure of place, the pleasure of the Andover Inn as Trustee "territory", the pleasure of come camaraderie cum responsibility.

For each of us he had a word, a quick comment, a smile or a stern gaze (often both), a thoughtful query, usually ending with a hearty “let's get on with it!".

For each of us he had a name, invariably the last name. It was always Ireland, Meyer, Gage, Monro, Gelb, Stevens, Cooper, Kimball, Allen, Piel, Sizer, Chapin, Boeschenstein et al. The only one who escaped was Sumner Smith who either carried both his names or simply “Sumner". "Smith" alone lack proper identity!

We had our mission: to oversee the management of Phillips Academy; to select its leader with the utmost care, and then to back that leader under all conditions; to invest wisely in the schools material resources of money, buildings and land; to contribute generously our time, assets, and judgment; and finally to select successor trustees with the same care exercised in the selection of the headmaster. We recall with a smile his great pleasure when Mssrs. Beinecke and Wyman were elected, the final two during his time as president.

Process was important to him. Split votes were contrary to the basic trustee premise of loyalty to Academy and headmaster. Not that this body lacked for strongly held opinions often at variance with each other. But, such occasions called for patience, for taking out the issue in public and private, for seeking and securing consensus… and then for the casting of the vote.

Finally there was the test of trustee fibre. Don often described a good person as "someone you can count on when it's snowing outside".  No description could apply more accurately to him. And for some of us there was no stormier moment at Phillips Academy than when the transition from Headmaster Kemper to hHeadmaster Sizer coincided with the great national unrest over the American role in Vietnam. For more than two years Don McLean was the principle guide of the Academy. Not that he took over the daily management in any sense. Rather he saw that trust was properly placed, that those entrusted were surely backed, that consideration of the critical issue of the day (coeducation) was not neglected, and that the search for Andover’s twelfth headmaster was skillfully conducted. Advice on the governance of the Academy, often in the form of demands, came from many sources. All were heard. But when the time for decision arrived, it was the Board of Trustees, and only the Trustees, who rightfully exercised that power. 

In recognition of his is great contributions to the school and to our trustee body, we speak also of his partner and our friend Martha. Never did we gather at Andover, that her presence was not felt. Further, we knew that her concern for the best interest of Phillips Academy did not start and stop with trustee meetings. Ted Sizer spoke truly when, at Don's memorial service, he said “ His marriage with Martha – two vivid personalities in serene and secure joining - was very special. However family customs may shift in our culture, the loyalty lived out by Don and Martha expresses humanity at its best.

Our academy is the stronger, the wiser, the more worthy for the life and service of Donald H. McLean, Jr.

The Lahey Clinic Foundation

Herbert D. Adams, M.D.

On January 5, 1965 the official press release read: "The Lahey Clinic Foundation Elects a New President."

There was far more behind this line - over three years of considerable thought and effort, a true test of mettle and character.

Don McLean's involvement with the Lahey Clinic began in 1962, soon after I became Director of the Clinic following the retirement of Dr. Richard Cattell. A few years previously we had begun holding informal meetings with five other large clinics (Mayo, Cleveland, Ford, Ochsner, and Lovelace, Albuquerque, New Mexico). These annual two-day meetings were attended by top representatives from the administration and medical staffs. The agendas were simple, practical and very informal. Although several of the clinics had thought seriously about changing their corporate structure to a nonprofit basis, the first to do so was the Cleveland Clinic.

From the beginning of my involvement with administration, I had been dissatisfied with our corporate structure which has been set up under interlocking Massachusetts trusts by Dr. Leahy. Heavy taxes alone had not permitted the setting aside of funds for a new site and facility. It was a pressing issue for us. We had sounded out corporation lawyers in Boston, receiving scant encouragement because it had never been done in Massachusetts. We finally asked our Cleveland Clinic friends for more details, and to our amazement were told they had exactly the same experience in Ohio. Finally one of their trustees adjusted consultation with a corporate lawyer by the name of Donald H McLean, Jr., associated with John D Rockefeller, 3rd in New York. They had worked with him and he had led them to success. Further they were so impressed they had made him a trustee of the new Cleveland Clinic Foundation.

After making an appointment with him, Mr. Arthur Lyman, Chairman of the Lahey trustees, and I went to New York where we are graciously received. Don McLean listened intently to our proposition and then asked several pertinent questions. Before departure he told us he thought it could be done, and further that he would be pleased to join with us in the effort. For our part we were very impressed by his thoughtful reception, the detailed and factual discussion, and the keenness of his mind.

Thus began three long years of continuous consultation, the endless drafting of necessary legal instruments to meet our particular requirements, and most importantly determining how the plan might be put into operation after approval by the Massachusetts Secretary of State and the Internal Revenue Service. A large order indeed. Included of course we're opinions as to what could actually be gained by changing to a nonprofit status. Also an astute survey of our short-term and long-term goals and objectives. Don was at his best in this task, drafting many superb memoranda for study and guidance.

After two years of work it became clear that we could not get approval of the nonprofit status unless the Clinic was headed up by a board of trustees, the majority of who we're laymen. Likewise its president who would be the chief executive officer. I agreed to accept this legal requirement and gave up the directorship on the condition that our new Articles of Incorporation would specifically state that all medical matters would remain permanently under the jurisdiction of the board of governors made up of staff physicians with myself as chairman. In this manner our new corporate structure was finally approved by the Secretary of State and the IRS

We began the search for someone with exceptionally broad qualifications needed for the Clinic presidency. Our search turned up some fine possibilities, but none with the truly broad skills which we considered essential. Finally, Mr. Lyman said, “Really the only person who has all the right qualifications is Don McLean, and I would like to offer the position to him." This we did, and after considerable thought he wrote me a letter dated December 20, 1963 submitting a provisional acceptance. This letter is reproduced in the appendix since it is a typical McLean masterpiece, illustrating perfectly his flair for expressing himself in a thoughtful and convincing manner. Before acceptance, he states the issue with great precision and foresight. At the same time his sensitivity to the personalities involved has him include a proviso for a year of working together to see if "there was mutual compatibility."

At the end of this probation year (1964), the compatibility was evident and Don plunged into his new responsibilities. First we carefully worked outlines of authority - he in administration and I in medical matters. This is of course had been a worry for everyone during the planning stage. We soon found that lines of responsibility did overlap in many medical areas, and frequently we simply had to decide under whose jurisdiction it fell or whether it was a co-jurisdiction. This was done without rancor -  there was just too much to do!

With Don's enthusiastic blessings I concentrated on medical matters: medical staff, manpower and delivery of quality care. We pioneered the provision of group coverage for business and industry. While working in these fields I became very interested in the use of computers, even taking a course for executives offered by IBM. We did computerize our business operations promptly, and soon moved to the area of patient appointments and high-volume diagnostic services. These were beginning steps, but important ones which have helped to lead to the widespread use of the computer in all facets of healthcare today.

One of our major goals after the incorporation was the search for adequate facilities - a top-flight medical center where we could accomplish our major objectives of total medical coverage, quality control, efficiency, and reasonable cost. I relied almost completely on Don in the complicated negotiations to plan a medical complex with the New England Baptist Hospital on Parker Hill in Boston. When this negotiation faltered we decide to go it alone. In all this work a major headache was to be the funding for such a quality facility. Furthermore we were working in the face of almost prohibitive odds - steady encroachment on the right of free enterprise, the dawn of an era of regulation and controls administered by self-styled experts, and a blight of pernicious legal suits coupled with spiraling costs.

We are grateful to this gifted man for his strong and steady hand at the helm through the difficult complicated transitional years which culminated, in his words,"in specific plans for the construction and funding of a consequential medical complex in Burlington, Massachusetts." He retired from the presidency of the Clinic in 1975, but remained on the Board of Trustees. In 1980 he witnessed the move into the superb new medical center where it is one of the best and most successful institutions in the country.

Herbert T Adams, M.D. was President of the Lahey Clinic Trust, becoming Chairman of the Board of Governors when the Lahey Clinic Foundation was formed. A surgeon with widespread medical affiliations, he had been a trustee of both the New England Baptist and New England Deaconess Hospitals.

Four long years

Robert H. Minton

When Don McLean arrived in Boston in 1965 to take responsibility as President of the Lahey Clinic Foundation, the Clinic was operating in crowded quarters in a variety of buildings on Commonwealth Avenue not far from Fenway Park. Moreover, lacking its own hospital beds, it hospitalized patients through arrangement with the Deaconess and New England Baptist Hospitals. One major change would have to be the Clinics location - a site to provide adequate space for expansion and modernization, for inclusion of its own hospital, and with with reasonably easy access for patients.

Commencing in the latter part of 1966, the search for went on for four years concluding in January 1971 when the Burlington, Massachusetts town meeting voted one Thousand 1,622 to 375 in favor of zoning changes to meet Lahey’s needs. The final step was taken in July of the same year when the forty acre Burlington site was purchased.

Those were four long years!

The first location to be examined was in Boston on Parker Hill, close by the New England Baptist Hospital. Negotiations were protracted. But once it became evident that the Baptist Hospital wanted to retain both his own identity and independence, the search move beyond Boston. This decision to move away from Boston was a major one and loaded with emotional content. The physicians pretty much split down the middle, with the older ones mostly against the move and the younger ones generally for it. Not only would it be departure from a location familiar to everyone, but it also meant moving some distance away from other major medical centers in Boston, and the presence of a large number of high-quality centers had given the city worldwide renown. So the move away from Boston would be a truly major uprooting.

To assist in the site search, Don McLean engaged the well-respected firm of Sasaki, Dawson and DeMay Associates. The looking was on! Suggestions poured in, or were discovered. The geography was widespread: from Topsfield to the north of Boston, west to Framingham, south to Canton, and east to Quincy. Close to one hundred possibilities were investigated. By all odds, the most unique was the proposal to purchase the SS Queen Elizabeth which would be permanently docked in Boston and converted to a clinic hospital!

Other sites which were most seriously considered included the following:

• Weston, with a possible location was close to both groups nine and 128.
• Westwood, where an option was taken on one hundred nineteen acres of land, but after an endless series of meetings and coffee hours, it was clear that the necessary rezoning articles would not be passed. So The option was sold at a profit of close to $1 million.
• The McLean Hospital land and Belmont.
• The site now occupied in Burlington.

Throughout the myriad of meetings, planning sessions, and negotiations, Don McLean led the way. He held to the dream of a campus site for an all inclusive medical center. He had the ability to analyze, to state and restate the goals and objectives, to assemble all the facts that led to a reasonable conclusion, and to pursue that conclusion with determination, patience, and deep understanding of human nature.

The Lahey Clinic today bears witness to the wisdom of his work. At a time when all aspects of  health care are under public and governmental cost containment pressure, when advanced technology has sharply reduced the average length of hospitalization, and when many many hospitals are being forced to close or to merge… the Lahey Clinic stands tall. With the occupancy rate often in excess of 100% and a growing demand for expansion, is is fast becoming a medical landmark whose stature reflects the wisdom and vision which its leader put forward two decades ago.

Robert H Minton was director of administrative services Philly clinic during the four year search for site. During the late administration in 1962 he worked closely with Don McLean throughout that chapter of his career.

From Amherst to an Irish pub

John D.J. Moore

On a Sunday in May 1977 I journed to Amherst College to witness the conferring of its honorary degree of Doctor of Laws on Donald Holman McLean, Jr., Amherst ’32, Andover ’28, Yale Law School ’35.

It was a splendid occasion. I suppose the New England college commencement, complete with academic procession in colorful regalia, happy graduates, proud parents, banners and mace, brass band and ancient hymns, must be one of America's most felicitous ceremonies.

It was a joy to observe Don and Martha and their children as they listened pridefully to the Orator’s eloquent words of appreciation of Donald McLean. Indeed it made me feel proud, too, to be close to the newly - minted Doctor of Laws and his family. The Orator saluted Don:

Son of Amherst… your college greets you with admiration and pride… after service in… World War II you continued to serve your country… With John D Rockefeller, 3rd you were a powerful force in shaping private philanthropy into an effective instrument… in agricultural and rural development, and in the cultural life of the Far East.

As a Trustee of your school, Phillips Academy, you provided… leadership in difficult times. You have kept firmly in view first first things first in your rich family life as husband and father. You are a man one can count on when it is snowing outside.

Amherst touched on a few of Don McLean's achievements. This volume admirably recounts a good many more. It is an infinite variety is range is broad.

• From New Delhi to saving the Great Swamp in New Jersey and the Palisades of the Hudson;
• From establishing the Magsaysay Foundation in Manila to an active role in merging Andover and Abbott academies;
• From the Lahey Clinic to South American missions first Socony Mobil;
• From working on his and Martha's mountain retreat in Québec to resigning over in international "think tank" session of fifty or more distinguished psychiatrists - at Dromoland Castle in Ireland of all places;
• From co-authoring the basic legal textbook "Christie and McLean on the Transfer of Stock" to establishing the International House in Tokyo - a counterpart of International House founded by the Rockefellers in New York.

Indeed one could well call Don Martha's homes in New Jersey, in Québec in Brookline, and in Andover “international houses" because if you ever visited the McLean's at school vacation time, you would likely meet a half a dozen or more young Japanese and other foreign students - children of Don and Martha's friends from all over the world - happily spending the holidays with McLean youngsters and the neighbors’ children.

As I listened to the Amherst Orators remarkable litany of service to good causes, it recalled the ever so many evenings when Don, in New York for meetings, would stay with me-and regale me with exciting tales of the complex wheelings and dealings of his philanthropic activities. I think I most enjoyed hearing of his Andover adventures - soliciting and obtaining needed major gifts, searching for and choosing headmasters, merging with Abbott Academy. I learned about the people concerned - always called by surname, - “and then I thought of Stevens," Don would say, or "I called Stott," or "Ireland and Adriance took on the job,” or Sizer, or McNemar or Chapin, or Gelb, or Evans, or Roland. I came, as he recounted his ventures, to feel that even as an outsider I knew well the bearers of these and other fine Andover names.

Donald Irish episode deserves a word. The late Bernard P McDonough, industrialist and conglomerator from West Virginia had two interests in addition to managing his enormous business empire. He created a foundation for the study of schizophrenia any bought and restored the historic Dromoland Castle in County Clare Ireland. One day he sent me a copy of BusinessWeek containing a picture of Don McLean, which was accompanied by a laudatory article identifying Donald as an outstanding professional practitioner of modern philanthropy. "I want to meet this man," said Mr. McDonough. "I want you to get this man McLean to run the conference. Where can I find him?” "In Boston," I said. "He runs the Lahey Clinic." My jet is at Newark Airport," said McDonough."Call him up and let's go see him." We did and Don agreed to run the conference, which turned out to be a memorable event in the world of psychiatry. Dromoland Castle has 72 rooms and Don filled them with eminent psychiatrist and their spouses from all over the United States, from England, Ireland, Japan, Canada, Australia, and the continent. He set a four day schedule with panel groups, plenary meetings, rapporteurs, and time off for a bit of Irish tourism.

Don presided over the plenary sessions and chose the participants for the panel group and before my eyes I saw the Boston lawyer-administrator transformed into an Irish schoolmaster conducting classes of lively professionals. He controlled the whole show and did it supremely well, including rapping a few knuckles. McDonough was delighted and so were the doctors.

The Dromoland Castle conference provided a glimpse of the fun-loving McLean. One of the learned psychiatrist kept insisting that he must be taken to an Irish pub because he had heard they were so jolly and the talk so amusing and the wits so bright. I knew something about Irish pubs and while there do exist such delightful establishments as our colleague imagined, the country pubs in the part of Ireland where we where were quite different - a stranger would be treated to silence and stares until in distress and discomfort he would leave his "ball of malt" on the bar and flee the establishment. I took Don to visit a typical pub in the neighborhood and he got the point at once. "But there must be something we can do" was his remark - pure McLean. My driver, Kevin Keogh, seated at the wheel of our car, and said "gentlemen, perhaps there is something I can do. I suggest you bring your man along to McCaffrey's pub around 8 o'clock tonight.”  

The three of us and Kevin arrived at the same pub which earlier had been so gloomy and silent. Now it was crowded. As we walked in we were greeted with "hello, are you the Yankee doctors? Are you friends with Kevin? Come and have a jar." The locals insisted on buying drinks for us, they treated Don's colleague to a lesson in dark throwing, two gentlemen sang Irish duets, the elderly lady barmaid recited the endless poetry, and evening was a roaring success. As far as I know, Don McLean, who knew how to keep his own counsel, never disclosed to his colleague psychiatrist that he is been the victim of a "scam." It was the kind of good-natured stuff to Don loved.

As one reviews the active life of Don McLean, there emerges a man of astonishing versatility and uncommon knack for getting to the heart of complex problems. Combine this gift with an extraordinary aptitude for sizing up people and measuring their capabilities and character and you produce a manager and problem solver of formidable effectiveness - and a lovable, warm human being.

After reviewing his catalog of extraordinary achievements one might get the impression that here was a very serious fellow, that his working style was solemn and demanding, or even that his family life was earnest and not much fun. Precisely the opposite is true. My own dear wife and I never had more fun than when we were in the company of Don and Martha McLean. A visit with them was one laugh or chuckle after another. To be with this happy and affectionate family was pure joy.

Long may Don be remembered at the school he served so well.

John DJ Moore Yale Law School classmate and lifelong friend of Donald McLean, was United States Ambassador to Ireland in 1969 to 1975. 

Pulling up your socks

Raymond A. Lamontagne

Maybe one can gain some insight into the way Don McLean lived his life by the way he prepared for his death.

I visited Don at the Lahey Clinic at a time when we both knew that not much time was left. I found him sitting on the edge of his hospital bed pulling up his socks. I teased him about that because "pulling up one's socks" was always one of Don's favorite expressions. I helped him to a chair in the corner of his room and we sat and talked.

Our first subject was the Boston Red Sox. We agreed that they badly needed some pitching, that Rice just didn't seem to hit in the clutch, and that there was a lack of leadership from top management.

“Well, how are you?" I finally said.

"Just fine." Said Don."You know that I know all the key players here so that they take good care of me."

"I know," I said. Don has become president of the Lahey Clinic when it was located in a row of run-down, overcrowded brownstones in downtown Boston. He had led the effort to locate and build a modern, efficient facility just off route 128 in which he was now a patient.

“Is there anything I can do to help? Im not supposed to stay too long.”

"I think everything is under control. Chapin’s doing a good job. He gets along with the Abbots and that’s important. McNemar is getting the hang of the place and I think he’ll do just fine. They’ve kept me in touch. Anyway, Stott always lets me know what's going on. By the way, how do you think your boy Mesics is doing?"

"Fine," I said, knowing that Don was telling me that he was very pleased with how he was leaving things at Andover but that now it was time for me and others like me to pay attention.

"Did you know that I received a draft of a new book on John, 3rd?”

"Yes, I did too. What did you think?"

"I think it's pretty good. I made some notes on some things that they got mixed up on but, on the whole, I thought they did a good job. You know, the Population Council, the ADC, and the JDR 3rd Fund are all in good shape. I think that Blanchette is doing a good job seeing to it that John's responsibilities to these organizations are being met."

“I know,” I responded. I was familiar with the fact that Don’s work with John D. Rockefeller, 3rd had resulted in a number of creative organizations doing important work in fields ranging from population, to public service, to agricultural development, to the arts, and to Asian-American relations.

"How are Martha and the kids?" I asked.

"The kids are all doing well," Don responded with deep satisfaction. They have all checked in. John's been a big help with the insurance. It helps having one of the troops know what that's all about. I reviewed everything with him and with Martha. They all know what to do."

"Well, I guess I better be going. I stayed much longer than I should have." 

I got up to go and Don started to get up as well.

"Please stay put. I can find my own way out. You know, Don, you and I have never been much for sharing our emotions, I just want you to know, man-to-man, that I love you."

Don reached out his hand and said, “Help me get up. I want to walk with you at least as far as I can which will probably be the nurse’s station. I don't think I can go any further."

He was telling me goodbye as only McLean could say it. He was also responding to my expressions of affection for him in the only way he knew how.

We walked together as far as the nurse’s station and I continued down the corridor to the elevator and turned back. There was don standing by the nurse’s station and I continued down the corridor to the elevator and turned back. There was Don standing by the nurse’s station. His shoulders were squared and his head was held high. I bent over and pulled up my socks knowing that he could still see me. I only hope that he didn't see my tears.

Raymond A. Lamontagne was associated with Don McLean in the affairs of Phillips Academy, holding several key positions in alumni activities and capital campaigns. He also served as an associate to John D. Rockefeller, 3rd. He played a leading role in the early years of the Peace Corps.

Appendix

Chronology

DONALD H. MCLEAN, JR.

November 12, 1910, born, Elizabeth, New Jersey

1916 – 26    Pingry School

1926 – 28    Phillips Academy, Andover

1928 – 32    Amherst College, B. A.

1932 – 35    Yale University, L.L.B.

1939            Married Martha Lamb, Stansted, Québec.  

                    Children: Donald (1941), Ruth (1944), John (1947), Barbara (1953).

1935 – 36    Attorney, Reconstruction Finance Corporation 

                    Admitted to practice of law: 

                    U.S. District Court & Circuit Court of Appeals (1936); 

                    U.S. Supreme Court (1941); 

                    New York Court of Appeals (1948);

                    Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (1975).

1936 - 38     Attorney, Milbank, Tweed, Hope and Hadley, New York and                                                 Washington, DC 

1940            Co-author with Francis T Christie,"The Transfer of Stock" 

1942            Enlisted, U.S. Army, serving with the International Division    

                    (Washington), Joint Chiefs of Staff (Policy Division), Military Governor of 

                    Germany. Final rank, Lt.Col. Awards: Legion of Merit (1945); Oak Leaf   

                    Cluster (1946).

1947            Consultant on occupation problems for Department of State (on leave from                           Milbank, Tweed)

1948            Consultant on foreign affairs to the “Commission on Reorganization of                                 Executive Branch of Government” (Hoover Commission). 

                    Author, “Experts to Run European Recovery Program,” New York Times                               Magazine. 

1948 – 51    Counsel, Socony Vacuum Oil Company, Inc.

Associate, John D Rockefeller, 3rd (1951– 65)

1952            Population Council incorporated

1952            International House of Japan incorporated

1952            Rockefeller Public Service Awards established, Princeton University

1953            Counsel on Economic and Cultural Affairs Incorporated

1956            English Language Education Council ELEC) established, Japan

1958            Raymon Magsaysay Awards established, Philippines

1962            Agricultural Development Council established
                    JDR, 3rd Fund established

1962            Opening, India International Centre, New Delhi

Lahey Clinic Foundation

1964            Elected trustee

1965            Elected President

1971            Land acquired, Burlington, Massachusetts, for Lahey Clinic

1974            Groundbreaking for new Lahey Clinic

Phillips Academy, Andover

1956            Elected member Alumni Council

1957 – 58    President, Alumni Council

1958            Elected Charter Trustee

1959 - 61    President, Board of Trustees

Other

1948 – 65   Vice Chairman, Visiting Committee Graduate School of Public                                              Administration, Harvard University

1950 – 56   Officer and Director, Metropolitan New York Council, American Youth                                Hostels,Inc

1955 – 60   Trustee, President, Overlook Hospital, Summit, New Jersey 

1956– 65    Trustee, the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio

1964           Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge established

1974 – 82    Director, Massachusetts Financial Services, Co.

1977            Honorary L.L.D., Amherst College

September 12, 1984, died, Burlington, Massachusetts