Jeremy Blanchet ’43

Jeremy Blanchet ’43 died April 30 in Springfield, Oregon. Jerry graduated from Saranac (New York) High School, where he was a member of the dramatics club, worked on the school paper and enjoyed skiing. At Dartmouth he majored in English, skied, earned money by working at the Hanover Inn and graduated summa cum laude. He then became a pilot in the U.S. Navy, flying PB4Y-2-Privateers. When the war ended he received a M.A. from Princeton, followed by a Rhodes Scholarship at New College, Oxford University, where he earned his Ph.D.—along with classmate George Munroe. Returning to the States, he worked for the State Department on disarmament issues and was a member of the delegation to the Geneva Convention of 1960. He also went on a fact-finding mission to France and Libya. Later Jerry joined the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, where he was instrumental in drafting much of the Johnson era legislation that promoted the growth of community colleges and worked for desegregation. Jerry left government service in 1969 to become assistant to the president of Stony Brook University of New York. After retiring from Stony Brook Jerry became an independent historical consultant and studied the effects of U.S atomic tests on the observers. In 1999 he moved to Eugene, Oregon, to be near his daughter Megan and her family. Jerry converted to Catholicism in the 1960s. Jerry is survived by his children Garrett, Sylvia, Nicholas, Megan and Sarah and eight grandchildren.