Jeremy Blanchett *48

Jeremy Blanchet, a historian who had initially worked on disarmament issues for the U.S. State Department, died April 30, 2013. He was 91.

After graduating summa cum laude from Dartmouth in 1943, Blanchet enlisted in the Navy and served as an aviator until 1945. In 1948, he earned a master’s degree in history from Princeton. Then, as a Rhodes scholar, he studied at Oxford and received a Ph.D., studying under the historian Lord Allan Bullock.

Back in the United States, Blanchet worked for the State Department on disarmament issues and served on the American delegation to the 1960 Geneva Convention. He also undertook fact-finding missions to France and Libya. He then joined the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and was instrumental in drafting much of President Lyndon Johnson’s legislation promoting community colleges and working for desegregation in Southern U.S. colleges.

Blanchet left the government in 1969 to become assistant to John Toll *52, president of New York’s Stony Brook University. After retiring from Stony Brook, he was a consulting historian and researched the effects of U.S. atomic bomb testing on observers. He moved to Oregon in 1999.

Blanchet is survived by four children and eight grandchildren. 

Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.