John Swinton King ’42

John S. King died Aug. 30, 2007, of lung cancer in Ann Arbor, Mich.

John prepared at the Detroit University School. At Princeton he majored in politics and was a member of Elm Club. After graduating with high honors John was recruited into the Navy's top-secret VT Proximity Fuze project. After the war, John (by this time having switched from politics to physics) enrolled in a graduate program at the University of Michigan, where he earned a Ph.D. in 1953. He then joined the Navy Nuclear Propulsion project managed by General Electric and played a major role in the birth of the nuclear Navy.

In 1953 his wife, Betsy, contracted poliomyelitis and thereafter was confined to a wheelchair. John's care of her (and her support of him) were expressive of the warmth and integrity of their characters.

In 1959 John came back to the University of Michigan as a teacher and researcher in nuclear physics. From 1974 until 1979 he served as chairman of the Department of Nuclear Engineering. Under his guidance the department achieved a national and international reputation. He retired in 1989 as professor emeritus.

Betsy died in 1985. The class sends condolences to John's son, John Jr.; his daughters, Elizabeth and Frances; four grandchildren; and to his friend, Joan Matthews.