Jean E. Smith ’54

Historian and biographer of presidents Grant, FDR, Eisenhower, and George W. Bush, and of Justice John Marshall, and Gen. Lucius Clay, Jean died Sept. 1, 2019, just a week after publication of his final book, The Liberation of Paris. He has been called “today’s foremost biographer of formidable figures in American history.”

At McKinley High School, in Washington, D.C., he was active in student government. At Princeton he majored in politics, wrote his senior thesis on “Law Enforcement under the Constitution,” and served as a research assistant in the politics department. He was a member of Charter Club.

Jean served in the Army from 1954 to 1961 in West Berlin and Dachau, during which he married Christine Zinsel. He published his doctoral dissertation, “The Defense of Berlin,” before earning a Ph.D. in government from Columbia in 1964. He also attended Harvard Law School and Stanford Graduate School. He taught at Dartmouth; the University of Toronto; Marshall University in Huntington, W.Va.; and as a visiting professor at several other universities.

Jean was an active participant in 1954 class activities, including giving an address to the class titled “General Presidents: Washington, Grant, and Eisenhower” at a mini-reunion held, appropriately, at Mount Vernon.

He is survived by his wife of 60 years, Christine; daughter Sonja ’86, son Christopher, and four grandchildren. The class thanks him for his service to the country.