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PROFILE: Philip M. Klutznick

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Philip M. Klutznick: Jewish Leader, Visionary Developer, and Humanitarian Negotiator

Copyright © 2004 by Jean Sanders

Philip M. Klutznick was a many-faceted man who seemingly led parallel lives as a Jewish leader, visionary developer, and global peacemaker. He was courageous, caring, sometimes controversial and often unconventional. He was devoted to faith, family, peace, politics, and humanitarianism.

"I never changed. I never was a follower of the routine. People suddenly discovered I had ideas that to them were outlandish," Klutznick stated in an interview with Estelle Gilson. His "outlandish" ideas led to unique housing developments and productive peace negotiations while serving seven U.S. presidents.

Klutznick was born July 9, 1907, in Kansas City, Missouri, the second of four children. His parents, Morris and Minnie Spindler Klutznick, were Orthodox Jews who had emigrated from Eastern Europe in 1905. Morris Klutznick, who later became a furniture dealer and then a grocer, was first a cobbler. He owned a shoe store which the family lived above for several years.

From an early age Klutznick was unafraid to voice strong opinions. When he was ten he engaged in a fist fight with a boy who blamed Jews for causing World War I. The other, bigger, boy won. Klutznick claimed it was his only fist fight. Thereafter, he became adept at winning fights with words. A lifelong Democrat, he was a pre-teen when he made a speech lauding Harry Truman who, then, was a county judge candidate.

At Manual High School he was on the varsity debate team, graduating in 1924 with a gold medal in oratory. He was also editor of the Manualite, which, during his senior year, was judged Missouri's best high school newspaper.

He was vice president of the YMCA's Hi-Y Boys Club but, as a Jew, could not become president. Recognizing the value of religious-based youth organizations, he founded the second chapter of Aleph Zadik Aleph (AZA), a Jewish youth branch of B'nai B'rith.

In January 1925, he entered the University of Kansas but when the Klutznick family moved to Omaha, Nebraska, Philip transferred to the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. After a year there, he enrolled in Omaha's Creighton University. He earned a bachelor of law degree from Creighton in February 1930.

Throughout his collegiate career he honed his communicative skills. He was on the Creighton debate squad and the advisory council of Creighton's literary magazine, Shadows.

He traveled nationwide, organizing AZA chapters and was president from 1925-1926. In 1928, he joined B'nai B'rith and was president of the Omaha lodge at age twenty-three. While in law school he was executive secretary of AZA and managing editor of The Shofer, its monthly publication. He was also a member of the synagogue board of trustees, and once substituted for a rabbi.

Klutznick married Ethel Riekes on June 8, 1930. Their first child, Betty Lu, was born in 1932. They had five more children, but one was stillborn. Of those who lived, the others were boys.

Klutznick credited two men as his favorite early advisers. Mordecai Kaplan was a philosopher who stressed that "an American Jew who willingly lives in two civilizations--that of his people and their needs, and that of America and its needs. . . . has multiple loyalties [and] his task is to try to do justice to all." Klutznick exemplified this theory and expounded on it in his 1961 book about Jewish problems and proposed solutions, No Easy Answers.

In it Klutznick suggested that Protestants and Jews share fundamental values but express them differently because no one expression is right for everyone. He asserted that "rabbis are not psychiatrists, investment counselors . . . drama coaches . . . but should be 'religious specialist[s]'." He maintained that no matter what sect of Judaism, "religion is its essence."

The other most influential man in Klutznick's early professional years was a Catholic law professor, Louis Te Poel, who was also corporation counsel for Omaha in 1933. Te Poel chose the inexperienced Klutznick as his assistant because Klutznick's strength was his ability to see both sides of an issue and find points of agreement. Years later Klutznick declared, "There is no greater service a lawyer can render than to bring peaceful adjustment between conflicting claims. I have tried to live that way in all walks of life ever since."

In 1933, as part of his New Deal programs, President Franklin D. Roosevelt convinced Congress to establish the Federal Administration of Public Works. At the time, Klutznick was an assistant city attorney for Omaha. He went to Washington, D.C. to request federal aid and returned with funds for two housing projects. This was pivotal in his career because, as he said, "housing became a kind of obsession with me."

Several months later, he went into private practice. In 1938 he was instrumental in creating the Omaha Housing Authority and was its general counsel for three years. He authored the Nebraska Housing Authorities Law, making Nebraska the first state west of the Mississippi to enact such legislation. Later, he argued its constitutionality successfully before the Nebraska Supreme Court.

Klutznick's frequent trips to Washington on behalf of public housing issues were noticed by federal officials. In 1941 they asked him to consult on federal housing projects for civilian defense workers. Klutznick agreed to what he thought would be a temporary position.

Temporary became permanent. In 1944, President Roosevelt appointed Klutznick as Federal Public Housing Administrator. In this position he arranged for houses by the hundreds to be dismantled in some parts of the country and shipped elsewhere to be rebuilt wherever defense factory workers needed them. He also urged home owners who lived near defense plants to: (1) take in "war guests" as roomers, (2) convert single units into multiplexes, and (3) lease houses, commercial and industrial buildings using government money.

When Roosevelt died in 1945, Klutznick, as a presidential appointee, submitted his resignation to President Truman, who rejected it summarily, stating that Klutznick was more than a presidential appointee; they were friends.

He finally resigned in 1946 so he could return to private practice in Omaha. However, he changed his mind about Omaha when opportunity arose in Chicago.

Carron F. Sweet, Sr., a Chicago banker, wanted to create a new city for returning war veterans. Along with builder Nathan Manilow, Klutznick was intrigued. Park Forest would be a "satellite city," twenty-seven miles from Chicago.

They broke ground in 1947. Aimed at middle-income families, rental units were built first, then houses and "non-nuisance industry," shopping and commercial centers, and park areas. A natural greenbelt already existed "in the form of a forest preserve." Park Forest was often called "a model of intelligent planning." Klutznick was its first renter and lived there thirteen years.

In 1948, Governor Adlai Stevenson appointed Klutznick vice chairman of the Illinois Housing Authority.

Meanwhile, all this activity with housing did not distract Klutznick from his involvement with Judaism. With Truman's approval, he and Leon Keyserling had organized an informal campaign to seek contributions from federal employees for the United Jewish Appeal.

He was president of B'nai B'rith from 1953-1959. He was a board member of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany in 1953 and helped to establish the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in 1954. He journeyed to Morocco in 1956 to secure the release of 8,500 Moroccan Jews.

Klutznick served President Eisenhower as a delegate to the United Nations for three months in 1957. From 1961-63 he was ambassador to the United Nations Economic and Social Council under President Kennedy's appointment.

Meanwhile, in 1957 Klutznick began planning another new city: Ashdod, Israel. This was to be a major seaport south of Tel Aviv. Oved Ben Ami, founder and mayor of Nathanya, Israel, had visited Klutznick during the development of Park Forest. They planned to build Ashdod on ten thousand acres of sand dunes, using a labor force comprised mainly of Arabs from the West Bank. Today, Ashdod is a thriving city of nearly 200,000.

Klutznick was elected president of the United Jewish Appeal in 1960. During that decade he was also president of the American Friends of the Hebrew University, and vice president of the Jewish Welfare Board.

In 1963 he was appointed national chairman of the Founder's Fund of the Eleanor Roosevelt Memorial Foundation. In 1964, Klutznick surveyed housing problems in Brazil for President Lyndon B. Johnson. He continued to serve in various capacities at the United Nations throughout the 1970s.

In 1974, at age sixty-five, he stepped down as the chairman and CEO of his business, but he did not retire. Instead, he undertook another large real estate development: Chicago's Water Tower Place, a seventy-four-story complex, which included the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, 150 shops, and condominiums. Since he both lived and worked there, Klutznick liked to joke that once again he was living over the store.

In 1975, President Ford appointed him to serve on an advisory committee that facilitated resettlement of Vietnamese and Cambodians in the United States.

He was elected president of the World Jewish Congress in 1977. Two highlights of that term were his meeting Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and heading a delegation that met with Pope John Paul II.

Klutznick, the world famous Jew, remained loyal to his Jesuit alma mater. He had served on Creighton University's first board of directors to include laymen and was a member of its Board of Regents. November 14, 1979, he was awarded Creighton University's highest non-academic award: the Manressa Medal.

November 16, 1979, his nomination as Secretary of Commerce was announced by President Jimmy Carter. He took a leave from the World Jewish Congress and, at age 72, became the oldest member of Carter's Cabinet. He oversaw the 1980 U.S. Census and established the Office for Productivity, Technology, and Innovation. When Carter was not reelected, Klutznick returned to Chicago.

Whether or not they agreed with him, many Jews credited Klutznick with the ability and courage to address their controversial issues. It was stated that "Few people could have said what Klutznick did and have continued to serve that community."

One example was his 1981 meeting in Paris with Dr. Nahum Goldmann and former French Prime Minister Pierre Mendes-France shortly after Israel invaded Lebanon. In a statement known as "The Paris Declaration," the three called for immediate withdrawal and urged negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organization. They also advocated a separate Palestinian homeland.

In 1986, Philip and Ethel Klutznick established the Philip M. and Ethel Klutznick Chair in Jewish Civilization at the College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University in Chicago.

One year later they established The Klutznick Endowed Chair in Jewish Civilization at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. At the time, it seemed a radical idea to have a Jewish studies chair at a Jesuit school. But, as explained by chair holder Leonard J. Greenspoon, civilization is the key word. "Klutznick wanted to use the inclusive term 'civilization' to describe his all-encompassing view of Judaism as more than theology, more than ritual practice. Judaism, in Klutznick's vision, incorporates all aspects of life, including the arts, literature, politics, history, and the social sciences."

"If there is anything I have learned at all," Klutznick declared, "it is that everything is temporary in this world, and there isn't much difference between peoples."

Klutznick died August 14, 1999 in Chicago, Illinois, having suffered from Alzheimer's disease.

He received honorary degrees from Creighton University, Wilberforce College, Dropsie College, Hebrew Union College, Chicago Medical School, the College of Jewish Studies, Hebrew Theological College, Brandeis University, Yeshiva University, and Jewish Theological Seminary.

Other honors included:
Among several published accounts of his career are an essay by Estelle Gilson in Murray Polner's Jewish Profiles: Great Jewish Personalities and Institutions of the Twentieth Century (1991) and obituaries in the Washington Post, Omaha World-Herald, New York Times and Chicago Sun-Times (all in August 1999). Refer also to Philip Klutznick, No Easy Answers (Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1961) and Philip K1utznick with Sidney Hyman, Angles of Vision: A Memoir of My Lives (Chicago: I. R. Dee, 1991).

For more information, consult "900 Famous Nebraskans" on the Internet at www.nsea.org or www.beatricene.com/gagecountymuseum or www.nebpress.com.