Richard Lewis Thornburgh was an American lawyer, author, and Republican politician who served as the 41st governor of Pennsylvania from 1979 to 1987, and then as the United States attorney general from 1988 to 1991.
22 Facts About Dick Thornburgh
2.
Dick Thornburgh attended Mercersburg Academy then Yale University from which he obtained an engineering degree in 1954.
3.
Dick Thornburgh was inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa at the University of Pittsburgh in 1973, and was later awarded the society's highest honor, the Laurel Crowned Circle Award, in 1996.
4.
Dick Thornburgh subsequently was awarded honorary degrees from 32 other colleges and universities.
5.
Dick Thornburgh married Ginny Hooton, and they had three sons together.
6.
Dick Thornburgh received the Hubert H Humphrey Civil Rights Award from the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights in April 2005.
7.
Dick Thornburgh was widely recognized for economic development and the establishment of the Ben Franklin Partnership, and for implementing welfare reform programs.
8.
Dick Thornburgh was responsible for consolidating all of Pennsylvania's state-owned colleges and universities into the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education.
9.
Dick Thornburgh created the Governor's Schools, which were summer programs for talented and gifted high school students.
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Dick Thornburgh was the first Republican to serve two successive terms as governor of the commonwealth, and he was recognized by fellow governors in a 1986 Newsweek poll as one of the most effective big-state governors in the nation.
11.
Dick Thornburgh mounted a vigorous attack on white-collar crime as the Department of Justice obtained a record number of convictions of savings and loan crisis and other securities officials, defense contractors and corrupt public officials.
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Dick Thornburgh established strong ties with law enforcement agencies around the world to help combat drug trafficking, money laundering, terrorism and international white-collar crime.
13.
Dick Thornburgh oversaw the major environmental litigation that resulted from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989.
14.
Dick Thornburgh resigned as attorney general in 1991 to run for the US Senate seat left vacant when Senator John Heinz was killed in a plane crash; major-party candidates were chosen by the party committees because it was too late for a primary.
15.
Dick Thornburgh was widely expected to win the seat; however, he was defeated in an upset by Democrat Harris Wofford, who had been the interim appointee to that seat.
16.
Dick Thornburgh served a one-year appointment as Under-Secretary General at the United Nations at the personal request of President Bush.
17.
Dick Thornburgh was hired by the family of the late coach Joe Paterno to conduct an independent review of the Freeh report.
18.
Dick Thornburgh served as a consultant to the United Nations, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank on efforts to battle fraud and corruption.
19.
Dick Thornburgh concedes that change is difficult because equal segments of Puerto Ricans desire statehood or continuation of the status quo.
20.
Dick Thornburgh served as an observer to the Russian Federation's first legislative and presidential elections.
21.
Dick Thornburgh was a former member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
22.
Dick Thornburgh died at a retirement community in Verona, Pennsylvania, on December 31,2020, at age 88.