1. Edwin Meese III was born on December 2,1931 and is an American attorney, law professor, author and member of the Republican Party who served in Ronald Reagan's gubernatorial administration, the Reagan presidential transition team, and the Reagan administration.
Edwin Meese was a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
Edwin Meese is a member of the national advisory board of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education and a member of the board of directors of the Federalist Society.
Edwin Meese has served on the board of Cornerstone closed-end funds.
Edwin Meese was raised in a practicing Lutheran family, of German descent.
Edwin Meese's father was an Oakland city government official, president of the Zion Lutheran Church, and served 24 years in the non-partisan office of Treasurer of Alameda County.
At age 10, Edwin Meese published along with his brothers a mimeographed neighborhood newspaper, the Weekly Herald, and used the proceeds to buy a war bond.
The young Edwin Meese rode a bicycle on a paper route and worked in a drugstore.
At Oakland High School, Edwin Meese was involved in the Junior State of America and led his high school debate team to statewide championships.
Edwin Meese was valedictorian of Oakland High School's class of 1949.
Two weeks prior to graduation, Edwin Meese was accepted to Yale University and granted a scholarship.
At Yale, Edwin Meese served as president of the Yale Political Union, chairman of the Conservative Party, chairman of the Yale Debate Association, and a member of the secret society Spade and Grave.
Edwin Meese spent 24 months at Fort Sill near Lawton, Oklahoma.
Edwin Meese worked in logistics, conducting installation and operations of the 240 mm howitzer M1.
Edwin Meese completed active duty in 1956 and continued in the US Army Reserve, specializing in military intelligence.
Edwin Meese retired from the Army Reserve as a colonel in 1984.
Edwin Meese returned to California, where he obtained a law degree from UC Berkeley School of Law in 1958 and was a state Moot Court champion.
Edwin Meese accepted a position with the district attorney's office of Alameda County, California as a law clerk.
Edwin Meese prosecuted felony cases while maintaining a private practice on nights and weekends, where he focused on civil law.
Edwin Meese joined Ronald Reagan's gubernatorial staff in 1967 as legal affairs secretary, serving in that role for a year, until 1968.
Edwin Meese was known for his ability to explain complex ideas to Reagan in a way that often mirrored Reagan's own speaking style and mannerisms, leading Reagan biographer Lou Cannon to describe him as "Reagan's geographer".
Edwin Meese was widely criticized for escalating the official response to the People's Park protest, during which law enforcement officers killed one student, on his way to class, who was not a protester and injured hundreds of others, including bystanders.
Edwin Meese advised Reagan to declare a state of emergency in Berkeley, contrary to the recommendation of the Berkeley City Council.
Edwin Meese was recognized as one of five "Outstanding Young Men of California" by the California Junior Chamber of Commerce for his role in countering the Berkeley demonstrators.
From January 1975 to May 1976, in Chula Vista, San Diego County, California, Edwin Meese served as vice president for administration of Rohr Industries, manufacturer of railcars for the San Francisco Bay Area Bay Area Rapid Transit.
Edwin Meese left Rohr to enter private law practice in San Diego County, California.
Edwin Meese became Counselor to the President, who appointed him as a member of both his Cabinet and the National Security Council from 1981 to 1985.
On Monday, September 14,1981, Edwin Meese chaired the first White House discussion of what would become Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, the missile defense program.
Edwin Meese served as a liaison to the conservative evangelical community, arranging for meetings between social conservative leaders and the president.
Edwin Meese was considered a powerful and influential figure in the White House.
Edwin Meese created a storm of controversy in December 1983 after his responses to questions about hunger in America.
Shortly after, Edwin Meese offered a tongue-in-cheek defense of Scrooge, saying that he "had his faults, but he wasn't unfair to anyone" and that he suffered from "a bad press".
Reagan nominated Edwin Meese to be William French Smith's successor as US Attorney General on January 23,1984.
Edwin Meese began serving as Attorney General in February 1985.
In 1985, Edwin Meese received Government Executive magazine's annual award for excellence in management for his service in this role.
The investigation centered on actions Meese took that benefited him and his longtime friend and former lawyer, E Robert Wallach.
Robert Wallach worked as a lobbyist for the company and sought help from Edwin Meese on Wedtech contract matters.
The Edwin Meese Report, convened in the spring of 1985 and published its findings in July 1986.
The Edwin Meese Report advised that pornography was in varying degrees harmful.
One of Edwin Meese's innovations was to seek the cooperation of drug-producing countries.
In 1985, Edwin Meese delivered a speech calling for a "jurisprudence of original intent" and criticizing the Supreme Court for straying from the original intention of the US Constitution.
Edwin Meese was known for his opposition to the Miranda Warning ruling by the Supreme Court, which required a suspect's rights to be read to him before he is questioned by authorities.
In May 2006, Meese was named a member of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group by the group co-chairmen, James Baker III and Lee H Hamilton.
In 1982, Edwin Meese was elected as a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.
Edwin Meese has held the Ronald Reagan Chair in Public Policy at The Heritage Foundation since 1988, when he joined the think tank.
Edwin Meese is chairman of Heritage's Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, founded in 2001 to advance conservative views about the Constitution, legal principles and their impact on public policy.
Edwin Meese is currently the second vice chairman of Landmark Legal Foundation, a conservative non-profit legal group.
Edwin Meese serves as an adjunct fellow at the Discovery Institute and is a member of the board of directors of the Junior State of America Meese is on the board of directors of the Capital Research Center, a conservative think tank devoted to the research of non-profit groups.
Edwin Meese served on the executive committee and as president of the Council for National Policy, and he was co-chairman of the Constitution Project's bipartisan Sentencing Committee.
Edwin Meese served two terms as a member of the board of visitors of George Mason University from 1996 to 2004.
In 2017, Edwin Meese became a veteran companion of the Military Order of Foreign Wars.
Edwin Meese serves as a member of the board of directors of the Mercatus Center, a non-profit market-oriented research, education, and outreach think tank located on George Mason University's Arlington campus.
Edwin Meese has authored or co-authored a number of books on government, judiciary and civics, including:.
Edwin Meese has been a subject of many TV documentaries.