Good deeds are not sufficient unto themselves

Belen H. Abreu

On May 1, 1957, a history-making meeting was held in one of the rooms of the old Manila Hotel. Ramon Magsaysay, the much love President of the Philippines had died one and a half months earlier in a tragic airplane crash with twenty four others, and the meeting was to discuss the organization of a board of trustees of a foundation to honor his memory through a program of awards to recognize individuals in Asia who, like him, served their countries and fellowmen with courage and dedication. In the room where Mrs. Albert (Marjorie) Ravenholt, Donald H McLean, Jr., both representing the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Jesus Magsaysay, the brother of the late President and myself, then legal officer of the Philippine Commission on Elections.

That was my first meeting with Don, and his penetrating gaze and serious mien we're unsettling to say the least. That was also my first meeting with Jesus and both of us were eager to get Marjorie's ear to bring her up to date on the political situation, since a number of her dear friends we're running for office in the coming November elections - one for President and another for the Senate. We were, of course, touched by the noble gesture of the Rockefeller family to establish the award program and Don was telling us about the concept of the memorial, the role of the Rockefellers in this venture, and the trustees commitment and responsibility. Marjorie's long acquaintance with the Philippine scene and her equally long exposure to Asia fitted her ideally to be Don's teammate getting the Magsaysay Foundation off the ground. We all had stories we were dying to tell each other, but in deference to Don we desisted. A sharpened pencil and a pad on hand, this lanky American and his regulation striped blue and white seersucker suit was talking just like a lawyer. Since we already had a general idea of what the proposed memorial was all about, whenever there was a lull in the conversation, we would regale Marjorie with tidbits of the political boiling pot. We gradually grew aware of Don walking towards the window air conditioner to turn it on and, being an old appliance, it made a  disturbing racket which prevented us from hearing each other well. So we would stop our storytelling. Don would then put off the air-conditioner and continue with his explanation or questions.

This turning on and off of the air-conditioner went on for some time, until we finally caught on that we had to finish the business on hand before we could talk politics. I said silently to myself, "Thank heavens for Marjorie who understands our penchant for political gossip," as Don with his brusque and businesslike manner would have been hard to take without her. 

That was my impression of Don at our first meeting. It was my good fortune to be associated with him over the next 20 years and a nicer man and more steadfast friend it would be hard to find. When he smiled and executed that footwork of his that was almost a pirouette while bringing his two hands to a resounding clap, and his brown eyes twinkling and a wide grin dominating his face, you just got a feeling that all is well with the world. No longer was that unflinching gaze unsettling, no longer was his businesslike demeanor uncomfortable to take, for we knew that he was trying to get things done in the best way he knew. With our respect grew an affectionate regard for this man, for he gave himself unselfishly, sharing a brilliance of mind that underscored the good deeds are not sufficient onto themselves, they must be anchored to concepts that can endure when we leave the scene. This he has done in the Raymon Magsaysay Award Foundation's is witness to this.

Belen H. Abreu was Executive Trustee of the Raymon Magsaysay Award Foundation, 1957 - 1984. A member of the Philippine bar since 1944 she served as Chief Attorney, Commission on Elections, Philippine Government after World War II.

And then…India

Phillips Talbot

In India, as elsewhere, Don McLean contributed vision, practicality, and precision to the imaginative concepts that illuminated John D. Rockefeller 3rd’s great decade of institutional bridge-building across the Pacific. By 1958 the revived Japan Society along with the new Population Council, International House of Japan, Council on Economic and Cultural Affairs (later to be divided into the Agricultural Development Council and the JDR 3rd Fund), Asia Society, and Magsaysay Award Foundation were all in place and had begun to make the marks that distinguished each of them in the ensuing generation. John and his associates, notably including Don McLean, had tailored each to a specific, recognized need. But as yet they had not directly approached India.

Still newly independent in the 1950’s, India was a very large and obviously important country that had initially drawn John Rockefeller’s interest through its classic arts. In time John had pondered the value that India, which was opening fresh and wide international contacts, might gain from an International House, possibly modeled on the lines of the Tokyo House. He had hesitated to mention his interest to India’s leaders, however, because he knew how the pride of a new nation left them sensitive about foreign involvement in their national life. Thus, during a visit to New Delhi in February 1958, he was particularly pleased when India’s renown philosopher - and Vice President - and later President - Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, described how impressed he and Prime Minister Nehru had been by their earlier visits to the International House of Japan. It would be useful for India to have a similar institution, Dr. Radhakrishnan said. Could Mr. Rockefeller, out of his experience with the Tokyo House, prepare a memorandum outlining some of the functions such an establishment might have in India?

Mr. Rockefeller could and would. He cancelled onward travel plans in order to extend his stay in India and, on the same day, cabled Don McLean asking that he join him in New Delhi as soon as possible. When Don arrived a week later John had completed the memorandum. John and Don then called on Dr. Radhakrishnan, who was enthusiastic about the idea.

Thus was born the conception of what Srimati Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay has recently called “this rare institution,” the India International Center. Over the ensuing decades this Centre has brought together widening circles of Indian and foreign scholars and educators, journalists, diplomats, national planners, and others. Its library, auditorium, and conference facilities, its rooms for visiting residents, its restaurant and lounges and its beautiful gardens on a five-acre plot adjoining the splendid Lodi Gardens have become one of India’s primary intellectual and cultural centers.

For years were to intervene between the original Radhakrishnan/Rockefeller talks and the opening of the India International Centre on January 22, 1962. Throughout those years the principals, including Dr. Radhakrishnan's senior Indian associates, relied heavily on Don McLean's capacity for problem focused analysis, careful and sometimes delicate negotiation, and skilled drafting. But from the early months of Don's relationships in India went beyond those of a lawyer engaging in a constructive negotiation. He and the Indian men and women with whom he worked formed a collegial friendship that endured through later years.

I recall, for example, Don's association with Dr. C.D. Deshmukh, a distinguished educator and at the time head of the Indian University Grants Commission. When Dr. Deshmukh accepted Vice President Radhakrishnan’s request that he take the lead in organizing an international house in New Delhi, Don became his liaison with the Rockefeller interests. Dr. Deshmukh and his associates took Don into their confidence as they discussed the proposed institution’s functions, program patterns, desirable facilities, site and finances. In return he offered his own appraisals passed and along the experiences of other Rockefeller-related organizations in addressing similar matters. In frequent visits to New Delhi he helped them put their dreams and plans in words that would have meaning to international funding organizations, notably the Rockefeller Foundation and the JDR, 3rd Fund. All the time he kept John Rockefeller informed of the progress being made in New Delhi. As a perceptive go-between, he helped each end of this collaboration better to understand the outlook, possibilities, and difficulties of the other. In the process a friendship group and Don and his wife Martha became warm friends of Dr. and Mrs. Deshmukh.

Two images of Don's Indian connection remain strong in my mind. One derives from New Delhi. On announcement of Don’s impending arrival the pace of activity among the planners of the center would pick up. Dr. Deshmukh with his colleagues Dr. P.N. Kirpal, Laxmi Jain, the architect Joseph Stein, and others would ready themselves for discussions. Having come halfway across the world Don would then turn up without apparent travel fatigue, briskly settle down to consideration of one issue after another, offer his suggestions or criticisms or approval, and talk of the tactics of moving onto the next stage. In a country where many things move slowly, he was able at the end of almost every visit to report progress.

My other image is of Don in New York, reporting on the projects development in New Delhi. He would explain everything about the Indian’s achievements and difficulties to John Rockefeller, of course, and to those of us who were trustees of the JDR, 3rd Fund. He would also convey his impressions to officers of the Rockefeller Foundation, and possibly to others. His analyses were always clear-eyed. The Indians were approaching the project differently from the earlier, successful, organizational experience of the International House of Japan. But Indians were not Japanese, and Don would explain how in the Indian context their contrasting ways might also workout successfully. His interpretations of the Indian process had much to do with the acceptance by New York-based trustees, many of whom had little Indian experience, of assistance request from New Delhi.

Throughout the development of the plan for the India International Centre, Don was concerned that the question of appropriate leadership receive adequate attention in New Delhi. The total commitment of Dr. Shigeharu Matsumoto, its director, had been the key ingredient in the strong position attained by the International House of Japan. In India Deshmukh had felt that this other commitments would not permit him to play a similar role, though his interest was deep. Yet the more Don worked with him, the stronger he came to feel that the future of the Centre might well rest on getting Dr. Deshmukh wholly involved not just in the planning stage but in its ongoing operations. John Rockefeller agreed. , and Don arranged with Dr. Matsumoto that Dr. Deshmukh be invited to the International House of Japan as a distinguished lecturer. This experience and the encouragement of his Indian colleagues and American friends resulted in 1961 in Dr. Deshmukh’s taking over full leadership of the Center.

Don's responsibilities in the development of the India International Centre were completed by the time of its opening in 1962. Yet he retained his strong interest in the project. When he traveled to India years later, in 1976, on a mission for the Population Council and the Agricultural Development Council, Don and Martha stayed at the Center for several days. He later reported that he was impressed by the way it was operating, by its seminars and discussion groups, and by its role in India's national cultural and intellectual life. He was pleased also buys widening attraction to international academic and professional visitors to India.

Those of us who have resided in the India International Center in the 1980’s can confirm the value of the institution. The Center functions as a wholly Indian institution whose origins Americans can be proud to have been associated. 

To describe Don McLean’s role in India as that of a technician is accurate, but wholly inadequate. To be sure, he helped put proposals into language that would meet lawyers needs. He could, and did, help structure budgets in ways that could be understood by American foundation executives. He Interpreted Indians’ and Americans’ thought processes to each other.

Yet his real contributions went beyond those formal responsibilities. In India as elsewhere he was a Johnny Appleseed of ideas. He somehow managed to convey what had worked in one situation to those seeking a solution to problems in another. He hacked away at lack of realism in planning yet was able to shore up courage and optimism at the moments of discouragement that inevitably afflicted projects of this size and complexity. Indians paid him the complement of returning the favor.

Phillips Talbot was a fellow trustee of the JDR, 3rd Fund and cooperator in several Asian-related Rockefeller projects.  United States Ambassador to Greece 1965 to 1969, and before that Assistant Secretary of State for Near East and Southeast Asia, he was also an educator and writer who had been a journalist in Asian affairs for nearly 50 years.

Trusteeship…and paying your dues

John U. Monro

In the workaday life of a school or college, trustees are somehow always in the background, behind the scene, dimly perceived by faculty and students, shadowy transient figures that come and go. But trustees can make an enormous difference for good or ill. Trustees decide who will be headmaster or president, and having chosen a head they will back him up in developing and changing the program, monitor closely how things are going, counsel and steer him through major decisions, take issue or urge caution, approve, or suggest other ways to proceed. Trustees are responsible for the hard, detailed work of finances, for helping shape and monitor the budget, and for deciding upon and conducting major fun drives. In days of rapid social, fiscal, and political changes such as our last three decades, trustees, representing the world outside, must bring their outside knowledge to bear on the work and plans of the institution. On major issues trustees, like any strong-minded people, will disagree, often sharply, but for the good of the school they must work together to find consensus on which all can cheerfully agree.

There is no pay for any of this trustee work; It is done out of concern for the institution involved, “non sibi” as our school motto has it. The fact is that trustees are expected to give not only of their time and knowledge, but also of their own substance as a good example to others. And, I have learned over the years there is another element beyond “non sibi" that makes for a good board of trustees, and that is the inspiration one gets from being members of a good team, a successful team that works well together in a worthwhile and demanding institutional effort. Being a member of a great team in a tough game is a rare and ultimately rewarding experience, a joy. 

Donald H McLean was my great mentor and teacher in these matters. He had his own translation of “non sibi” which has haunted and effected my life for thirty years. The way Don put it was, “You pay your dues, meaning each of us owes an enormous debt to the people and institutions that helped to shape us, that we still inhabit and depend on everyday of our lives; and we must never in our time forget to “pay our dues." The value of Don McLean's definition for me, and I expect for others, is that it puts a rational and compelling reason to build the old Latin saw “non sibi" into one's life. It was part of Don McLean's genius to think through complicated ethical and operational problems and translate his conclusions into pithy, workable, earthly metaphors.

I can only begin to sketch here the major elements of change over the past thirty years at Andover in which Donald McLean had a leading role. These were years, as historian Fritz Allis has observed, when Andover "underwent more basic changes then in all its previous history."

Early in his long tenure as Headmaster, John Kemper decided it would add enormously to the strength of the school to build a significant alumni organization and involve its members in the critical business of observing school activities and policies, and giving the management advice. The decision was a major turning point in Andover affairs, and the 1950’s Donald McLean became a leading champion of the plan, one of the first presidents of the new Alumni Council. He and I joined the Charter Trustee group together in 1958 and set together in the far-end freshman seats. I remember well his enthusiasm at the opportunity of bringing new, younger alumni ideas and influence to bear on the Board’s business

Almost at once the board asked Don McLean to direct the huge Andover Program Fund Drive for $7 million to help John Kemper build the new Andover he had in mind, – the new dormitories around Rabbit Pond, the new Evans Science Building, and the Arts and Communication Center linking the museum and the stage in George Washington Hall. The campaign was a demanding three year effort of planning, organizing, and execution, and its success set Andover on its new course for this half-century. I remember that Tim Ireland was McLean's major partner in the alumni section of the drive, and Fred Stott was the key staff person; but Don McLean was the Chief Executive Officer and the chief hitman. And he saw to it that we all “hauled up our socks" and “paid our dues."

In the late 1960’s John Kemper developed two main issues that produced sharp divisions within the Board. He wanted Andover to be out front in joint efforts of the independent schools to provide educational opportunities for black students, and for Andover to direct its own admissions efforts to admit more black students. There were serious reservations within the Board about this proposal, - reservations that the program would be costly, and that it might well bring about a lowering of the schools traditionally high academic standards. That the Board finally reached a consensus to improve and encourage the program owed a great deal to Donald McLean's ability in human relations and one-on-one persuasion.

The most critical division within the board in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s rose on the issue of merging with Abbott Academy. By then the evidence was fairly clear that Andover would follow the national trend and go co-ed. The Abbott trustees could since this possibility for Phillips Academy also, and could foresee the problem such a move would create for Abbott, our neighbor down School Street. Informal conversations began, and John Kemper arrived at the firm conviction that the decent, honorable, gentlemanly course was not the fairly simple one of starting to admit girls to Andover, but the more complex and expensive course of working out a merger between the two schools, thus preserving as much as possible of the identity and tradition of Abbott Academy. Serious members of the board saw no good reason for the merger: it would be a heavy expense on Ancover’s resources, in legal fees and commitments; buildings would require renovation; there would be entanglements of contracts to teachers and staff; and we were under absolutely no legal commitment to Abbott Academy. They saw it as a violation of our fiscal responsibilities as trustees to take on an unnecessary financial and legal burden.

Donald McLean became President of the Board in 1968 and the Abbott issue was certainly the most divisive, difficult, and threatening problem he faced in his new term of responsibility. We did not know it then, but John Kemper had three years to live, and for much of the time he was in failing health. The Board’s division was not resolved; in fact, it hardened, though there was obvious pressure to reach a decision as soon as possible. Donald McLean supported John Kemper’s view, but needed a Board consensus; so the discussions went on, but the vote was postponed, deferred, put off. After John Kemper died, the disagreement and postponements went on for yet another year during Simeon Hyde’s interim tour as Acting Headmaster. 

Meanwhile we looked for a new Headmaster and in 1972 appointed Ted Sizer. His first task was to resolve the Abbott merger  problem, and he set about it with directness, energy, and sense. In his first meeting with us In July 1972, a special meeting of the Board, Sizer stated that it was his clear preference that coeducation be achieved by merging with Abbott. He further crisply outlined a series of steps to be followed which would complete the merger within a year. This intelligent, confident, evaluation was evidently the voice we had all been waiting for. We looked at one another, in relief. Nobody in the room was of a mind to tell this new this able new young Headmaster “no" to his first proposal. So Donald McLean then and there put the question and got the unanimous vote he had waited three years for.

When we acknowledge and cheer the result, we need to remember who it was that kept the issue alive through three agonizing years, who set up the search committee that found in nominated Ted Sizer, who briefed Sizer on the tangled ins and outs of the Abbott issue, and who scheduled a special July meeting so that we could settle the matter, and " get along with it." The happy scenario did not happen by accident. It took a lot of hard thought, and sense, and courage, and doing. And Donald McLean did it.

We all tend to think of Ted Sizer’s nine years at Andover as "glory" years in the life of the school, years of the successful transition to coeducation for student body, faculty, and staff, and with that the incredible transformation of a tough, old, male school; years of the extraordinary Bicentennial Celebration, and it's $52 million fund raising effort; years of an unimaginable expansion of course offerings that would be of interest to both faculty and students; years of academic explorations with short term institutes for high school students and the model M S Squared program for minority students to help them prepare for college; culminating in the selection of Donald and Bridget McNemar to step in confidently and well to carry forward the good work. 

Sizer years, to be sure, but to me these the great years of Sizer and McLean: the Headmaster with an educated genius for working with adolescents, gifted teacher and administrator, with a brisk style of intelligent, infectious, competent optimism; a Headmaster backed up at every turn, advised, prodded, cautioned, encouraged, and supported by the President of the Board, who was a superb judge of people and situations, who kept in touch day in and day out, issue after issue, with his fellow members of the Board, who knew how to state the issue before us, when to put the issue and when to delay it, and finally who somehow knew how to pull the Board of Trustees together as a team, a successful team in the great" worthy" enterprise, a joy to belong to and serve.

Donald McLean gave each of us a living model of what it means to "pay our dues."

John U. Monroe has been a trustee of Phillips Academy since 1957. A writer and educator he was Dean of Harvard College until 1967. Since then he has taught at Miles College and Tougaloo College. He has received honorary degrees from 12 colleges and universities.

A balance of ends and means

John L. Cooper

As President of the Andover Board of Trustees, Don flourished especially in the after-dinner gatherings in his suite at the Andover Inn where, with a glass in hand, he could corner those with a special interest in a given subject and work out a plan for putting across the proper program. He was most in his element when he could talk confidentially to the key people involved in any decision. What he liked was to get things completed once it became clear that a consensus with a reasonable majority of support has been attained. He liked the decisions to be reached first, if possible, by those members of the board who had the most reason to be interested and informed on the subject at hand. Ted Sizer described this best as, “his nicely balanced mixture of well-defined ends and carefully crafted means.” His method of operation worked well, except for the occasional frustrations of those board members who had not been present in the Inn and who arrived at the meeting the following morning to find a fait accompli in an area where they were prepared to launch a learned discourse.

In private conversations our female colleagues were "dollies" to Don. This was just an easy, short form way of referring to ladies, all of whom he liked. Anyone who was misinformed on a subject, especially those who did not share McLean's opinion, was "out to lunch on this one." On one occasion when the merger of Phillips Academy and Abbott Academy was being implemented, one or two "dollies" with intense feelings got into the subject of female representation on the Board of Phillips Academy. They took an extended lunch break on this one, with our President as the focus of their fears about future board discrimination against the Abbot constituency. Don waited patiently, but in vain, for some sort of group opinion to evolve; as our leader he was under siege and beginning to be visibly discomfited. This offered me an opportunity to try to accomplish something which I thought needed doing. I felt that we could make greater use of the Board’s standing committees, especially the nominating committee. The long discussion of future female representation seemed to me to present an opportunity to put the nominating committee to work, as well as to come to the rescue of our embattled standard-bearer. Accordingly, I moved that he refer the matter to the nominating committee. He excepted immediately, with profuse thanks. Over the next couple of years he frequently thanked me for the idea. I thought I had converted him into a regular use of the committee and congratulated myself on introducing a major advance in the governance of the Academy. Then one day, after thanking me one more time for rescuing him, he added, "of course, I had no intention of doing what you suggested. I expected to solve the matter in my own way. But you certainly got me off the hook at that terrible time."

Don was a straight thinker, and for this reason he became a Director of the mutual funds managed by Massachusetts Financial Services Company, where I spent most of my business life. His long and varied legal and business experience did not provide him with an especial interest in individual investments but, just as at Andover, he had an instinct for making sure that someone was doing the right things. As he attained some seniority he quietly assumed the position of spokesman for the “outside directors," those not part of the management. In 1982 Massachusetts Financial Services Company was sold to sun Life Assurance Company of Canada. The transfer of ownership requires the acquiescence of the outside directors of the funds and, as might be expected, these independent minded individuals did not all arrive at parallel conclusions at the same time. This provided the stuff of which McLean’s favorite playing turf was made. It was quite characteristic of Don that he saw this as an interesting challenge and he said to the Chairman of MFS, “I will have to decide how to go about bringing this off.” It was probably not the issue of the sale itself that interested him as much as how to produce a consensus that satisfied everyone.

Don was a "good" man who knew and appreciated the virtues that constituted successful living with one's fellow human beings, but he was not a formalist. He was a practical man and, happily, had a proper touch of wry amusement about his world. In his last months his wife, Martha, adjusted that it would be welcome if he could continue to receive the written material sent to Directors before each monthly meeting. One day when the envelope arrived, he said her her: "It certainly is wonderful to get some mail seeking my advice and counsel, in addition to the notes saying someone is praying for me."

John L Cooper was President and/or Chairman of Massachusetts Financial Services Company Boston, and a Trustee of Phillips Academy. He also served as President of the Trustees of Mount  Holyoke College and as a Trustee of Massachusetts General Hospital.

A Fellow Trustee

R.L. Ireland

As is the case case with so many Andover students a number of years went by before I became re-involved with the school. My first Alumni Council meeting was the occasion, and it was one Donald H McLean, Jr. who made a lasting impression on me. He had been a principal architect of this very important body of alumni that has not been existence prior to World War II.

On a gray, cool autumn morning in the 1950s, a middle-aged vibrant Don McLean stood modestly in the corner of a Morse Hall classroom addressing a large committee. Of course, it was a thrill to return to the beautiful campus, but it was the presence of this intelligent, dedicated man, delivering a thoughtful report on a subject that I have long forgotten, that I remember so vividly.

Even then he spoke carefully, in measured words with calculated cadence, a direct look in deep, searching eyes. As was the case throughout his life, he had something to say. Don was not mesmerized by the sound of his own voice, and when he took the time of a group or an individual, his message had been thoroughly weighed. It was readily apparent to a newcomer that this friendly, yet reserved, man was to become an important influence on Phillips Academy.

During the 1958 to 1961 Andover Program fund-raising campaign he was a delight to work for and with. He was the overall chairman. I was the alumni chairman. He provided all-essential quality of leadership to the effort. There were moments of elation, frustration and even despair during that campaign, but Don never gave up and even the dark moments he managed to see the lighter and humorous side of situations on so many occasions I can remember him breaking into that familiar broad smile and uttering the McLean trademark - "Let's get on with it."

Every fundraising campaign must have one large donor, and Don and I were in hopes that Thomas Mellon Evans might fill the bill. We were having difficulty setting up a meeting with Tom, and one Saturday afternoon while watching an Andover football game, we plotted an approach. The following day we were getting a lift from the Westchester County Airport which was not far from Tom's Greenwich home. So we decided to pay a visit without an appointment in the hope of catching him in a relaxed weekend mood. Uneasy about the wisdom of our surprise visit, we drove up to the Evans beautiful house on Round Hill Road, rang the bell, and were greeted by a ferocious barking, and eventually a non-English-speaking downstairs maid. Dedication to our task gave us the courage to stand there in spite of the two guard dogs and attempt to understand the maid over the din. "The Evans know home." We had taken a calculated risk. Had he been home, Tom might have resented the call. On the other hand, he might very well have made his extremely generous gift right then and there instead of later. We will never know, but this adventure typifies the kind of bold step that we occasionally took. And spite of the heart-pounding, we both derived some fun out of our audacious caper.

We served together as Charter Trustees at Phillips Academy for more than a quarter of a century and during that span of time we live through a number of demanding situations. One of the pleasures of working closely with him was the opportunity to watch his mind work. He loved the challenge of mental exercise,  yet he enjoyed the execution of a decision just as much. He understood compromise and knew the importance of having the votes. At Trustee meetings he was a firm believer in bringing up the controversial agenda items on Friday and then having the important luxury of the “smoke filled room” procedure that night before resolving the matter on Saturday morning. Don invariably provided the voice of reason and moderation.

Twenty-one Charter Trustees retired during our years together and the selection of new Trustees was always a serious business. In 1963 there were two vacancies, and we held the customary Thursday night dinner of charter trustees at the Lanam Club. Although considerable groundwork  had been accomplished in advance, there were differing ideas, I particularly recall the issues involving Steve Horn and Bill Bender. Steve had been an Alumni Trustee for three years, but at that juncture he was sixty-five (which would allow him only five years in service), and the emphasis was on selecting younger men. This champions we're holding hard, contending that a total of eight years was a worthwhile span. Bill Bender was not an alumnus but his long involvement with the school as a teacher and Johnny Kemper’s reliance on him as an educational sounding board were evident. His credentials as Dean of Harvard were also a plus! While I was chairman of the Nominating Committee, it was with Don McLean's considerable help that we affected a compromise which elected to the board the first non-alumnus in over 50 years, and the first 65-year-old! Don loved to play these very important games and he played them well.

Still another side of him was demonstrated at the time of Johnny Kemper's death. Our long-time Headmaster has been suffering from terminal cancer for several months, and there were strong differences of opinion among the Trustees as to whether his successor should come from within the school or from outside. As President of the Trustees, Don called a special meeting at the Century Club in New York City where we were faced with one of the most important decisions within our purview - the choosing of a new leader, and by what process. The telephone wires to Andover were crackling. Simeon Hyde was appointed the Acting Headmaster. It was also directed to appoint a Search Committee to look into candidates from the faculty as well as the educational world and other walks of life. After all, our predecessors had chosen a West Pointer noted more for his ability to manage people than his educational experience. The point is that Don took hold. He stepped to the wicket - cool, very much in charge, patient as the many suggestions of how to proceed to poured fourth, and finally, crisp and decisive. As a result the search committee was given a broad mandate, but a tight deadline

Whether moderating a difficult discussion, selecting the right person for the position, or seeking funds for Andover, Don took on the central issue with logic, a compelling desire for successful resolution… and an ample dash of good humor.

R. L,  Ireland III joined the Board of Trustees of Phillips Academy in 1960 and thereafter was closely associated with Don McLean in the Academy’s affairs. He was a partner of Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., New York.

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.