James T. Ramey

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James T. Ramey
Ramey in 1966
Born
James Thomas Ramey

(1914-12-05)December 5, 1914
Eddyville, Kentucky, U.S.
DiedAugust 28, 2010(2010-08-28) (aged 95)
Bethesda, Maryland, U.S.
Education
Employers
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1941; died 2006)​
Children2
Member of the United States Atomic Energy Commission
In office
31 August 1962 โ€“ June 30, 1973

James Thomas Ramey (December 5, 1914 โ€“ August 28, 2010) was an American lawyer, government official, and expert on the applications of nuclear technology. Ramey served as one of the five commissioners of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) from 1962 to 1973, the longest tenure of any AEC commissioner. He was married to the noted endocrinologist, physiologist and feminist Estelle Ramey.

Biography

Ramey was born in December 1914 in Eddyville, Kentucky, U.S. but grew up in Chicago. He graduated from Amherst College in Massachusetts in 1937, before completing an LL.B. in 1941 from Columbia University in New York City.[1] In 1938 he met Estelle Rubin, who was a doctorate student in chemistry at Columbia and in 1941 they married. They went on to have two children together.[2] In 1941 he began working as a senior attorney for the federally owned electric utility corporation Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in Knoxville.[1][3]

Atomic Energy Commission

In 1946 Ramey's boss

Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE), a congressional committee which oversaw the AEC.[4]

In 1962 the JCAE placed heavy pressure on President John F. Kennedy to appoint Ramey to one of the two vacant commissioner posts, while one commissioner threatened to resign from the AEC if Ramey was appointed.[6][4]

In August 1962, Kennedy appointed Ramey to be one of the five commissioners of the Atomic Energy Commission.

Nobel-chemist Glenn T. Seaborg, who later described Ramey as the "most difficult of the commissioners to get along with on a personal level", but stated that Ramey was "very able and intelligent" and that the two of them managed to achieve a "working relationship" when "pushing agreed-upon objectives". In 1974, Anthony Ripley of The New York Times described Ramey as "perhaps the single most influential member of the commission in the last decade".[9]

Later life

After his AEC commissioner term came to an end in 1973, Ramey worked as a vice-president of the engineering company Stone & Webster in Massachusetts.[8]

Ramey's wife Estelle died in 2006.[10] Ramey died August 28, 2010, in Suburban Hospital, Bethesda, Maryland, aged 95 from complications from pneumonia. He was survived by his two children.[1]

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to James T. Ramey.
  1. ^
    ISSN 0190-8286
    . Retrieved 2023-02-12.
  2. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved 2023-02-13.
  3. ^
    OCLC 1075727
    .
  4. ^
    ISBN 978-0-312-07899-7
    .
  5. ISBN 978-0-520-07187-2
    .
  6. ^ Green, Harold P.; Rosenthal, Alan (1963). Government of The Atom: The Integration of Powers. Internet Archive. New York: Atherton Press. p. 107.
  7. ^
    OSTI 5977409
    .
  8. ^ a b Ramirez, Margaret (2010-09-08). "James T. Ramey, 1914-2010". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2023-02-12.
  9. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved 2023-02-13.
  10. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved 2023-02-12.

External links
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James_T._Ramey&oldid=1174886163"