Stanley Resor: A Tribute to the Resor Family By Pat Stoddard (P’71, ’72, ’75, GP’03, ’06, Former Faculty) Anyone who knew him will tell you that Stan Resor was a modest man of total integrity whose diligence and breadth of concern for his family and his country distinguished his actions all his life. His April 19, 2012 obituary in The New York Times (see below) sums up his monumental dedication to his country. But it doesn’t tell you about his family’s extensive involvement with New Canaan Country School. He and his wife, Jane Pillsbury Resor, were the parents of seven NCCS sons: Stan, Jr. ’59, Chuck ’61, John ’64, Eddie ’66, Billy ’67, Tom ’73 and Jamie ’75. Stan was a member of the Country School Board of Trustees for over a decade—1953 to 1964—serving as President from 1956 to 1959 and as head of the search committee that brought George E. Stevens to the School in 1963.
Excerpts from The New York Times obituary, “Stanley R. Resor, Vietnam War Army Chief, Dies at 94” by Douglas Martin published on April 19, 2012. “Stanley R. Resor, who as secretary of the Army from 1965 to 1971 oversaw the troop buildup in Vietnam, investigated the massacre of civilians by American soldiers at My Lai and laid the groundwork for the all-volunteer Army, died on Tuesday at his home in Washington. He was 94. “Mr. Resor (pronounced REE-zor) appointed the first female Army generals, supervised the development of helicopterbased warfare tactics and ended racial discrimination in off-base housing at German bases.” “Although known for his quiet, meticulous approach as a top lawyer in a prestigious New York law firm, Mr. Resor
Jane Resor, who was a Trustee from 1986 to 1988, was a Minnesota native and passionate about ice hockey. Weary of shoveling snow off Hardon Pond so the School could have a hockey team, Jane led the effort to build the Winter Club and open it to the community. She also organized the boys’ hockey program and left an indelible mark on the members of all the teams she organized and tirelessly chauffeured. In reminiscences at the Memorial Service for Secretary Resor at NCCS in May, his youngest son, Jamie, read a letter his father had received just this past March from Professor Martin A. Albert, MD, PhD. Neurology at the Boston University School of Medicine, director of the Aphasia Research Center of the VA Boston Healthcare System, and former National Director of Medical Research for the VA under the Clinton Administration.
could speak his mind. When he resigned in 1971 after serving six years under President Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon, he said the Vietnam War could prove to be “unwise” if it resulted in a new American isolationism. “He went on to serve as an ambassador in charge of negotiating troop reductions in Europe from 1973 to 1978, and as the third-ranking official in the Defense Department from 1978 to 1979. He also became an outspoken advocate of nuclear arms cuts. As chairman of the Arms Control Association in 1997, he rounded up 50 arms control experts to write a letter to President Bill Clinton protesting the expansion of NATO as needlessly provocative to Russia.” “Mr. Resor went to the Groton School in Massachusetts and did both his undergraduate and law studies at Yale… During
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World War II he served in the Army, fighting in the Battle of the Bulge and receiving the Bronze and Silver Stars and a Purple Heart. “He joined the law firm of what today is Debevoise & Plimpton. Although Mr. Resor was a moderate Republican, President Johnson, a Democrat, appointed him Army secretary. President Nixon, a Republican, reappointed him. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter appointed Mr. Resor under secretary of defense for policy...” “In 1948, Mr. Resor married Jane Lawler Pillsbury, daughter of John Pillsbury, former chairman of the Pillsbury Flour Mill Company. She died in 1994. “Mr. Resor is survived by his wife, the former Louise Mead Walker; his sons, Stanley, Charles, John, Edmund, William, Thomas and James; 20 grandchildren; and 2 great-grandchildren.”
New Canaan Country School Bulletin
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