Harry McPherson
American lawyer, Johnson administration (1929-2012)
Harry Cummings McPherson Jr. (August 22, 1929 – February 16, 2012) served as counsel and special counsel to President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson from 1965 to 1969 and was Johnson's chief speechwriter from 1966 to 1969. McPherson's A Political Education, 1972, is a classic insider's view of Washington and an essential source for Johnson's presidency. A prominent Washington lawyer and lobbyist since 1969, McPherson was awarded American Lawyer magazine's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008. He died February 16, 2012, in Bethesda, Maryland.
Early life, education, military service
McPherson was born and raised in Tyler, Texas. He attended Southern Methodist University and received his B.A. in 1949 from the University of the South. Intending to be a poet and a writer, he enrolled at Columbia University for a master's degree in English literature. When the Korean War broke out in 1950, however, he enlisted in the Air Force. McPherson served in Germany as an intelligence officer, studying Russian troop deployments and plotting targets.
“Harry McPherson” enters the record as american lawyer, Johnson administration (1929-2012). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Harry, McPherson and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3790209. VIAF identifies the subject as 79422710. The Library of Congress control number is n88010983. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1929, 2012, 1965 and 1969.
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This entry incorporates text from “Harry McPherson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.