54 Facts About Kenneth Keating

Kenneth Barnard Keating was an American politician, diplomat, and judge who served as a United States Senator representing New York from 1959 until 1965.

Kenneth Keating briefly became a teacher at East High School, before beginning attendance at Harvard Law School.

Kenneth Keating joined the United States Army for World War II, and was commissioned as a major.

Kenneth Keating served in India as head of the US office that managed the Lend-Lease Program for the China Burma India Theater and was promoted to colonel before the end of the war.

Kenneth Keating was promoted to brigadier general in 1948, and continued to serve until he retired in 1963.

In 1946, Kenneth Keating successfully ran for a seat in the US House, representing the Rochester-based 40th district.

Kenneth Keating served until 1969, when he resigned to become US Ambassador to India.

Kenneth Keating served as ambassador until 1972, when he resigned to campaign for the re-election of President Richard Nixon.

Kenneth Keating was tutored by his mother until age seven, when he began attending the Lima public schools as a sixth grader.

Kenneth Keating graduated from high school at age 13 and attended Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, from which he graduated in 1915 as the class valedictorian.

Kenneth Keating graduated from the University of Rochester in 1919, and was a member of the Delta Upsilon fraternity and Phi Beta Kappa.

Kenneth Keating taught Latin and Greek for a year at Rochester's East High School, then began attendance at Harvard Law School.

Kenneth Keating graduated in 1923, was admitted to the bar, and commenced practice in Rochester.

Kenneth Keating served initially as chief of the assignments branch in the international division of the Army Service Forces headquarters, and was promoted to lieutenant colonel in October, 1942.

In 1943, Kenneth Keating was assigned to India as head of the Army Service Forces international office that administered the Lend-Lease Program for the China Burma India Theater, part of the South East Asia Command commanded by Lord Louis Mountbatten.

Kenneth Keating was promoted to colonel in February 1944 and in July 1944 he made an assessment tour of the theater's front lines with General Albert Coady Wedemeyer, Mountbatten's chief of staff, which took him to sixteen countries, including Ceylon, Burma, Indochina, and Java.

Kenneth Keating later served as executive assistant to Mountbatten's US deputy, Lieutenant General Raymond Albert Wheeler, and was the senior American officer at the South East Asia Command's rear headquarters in India.

Kenneth Keating closed out his wartime service as a liaison between the Army Services Forces and the British military office in Washington, DC, and was awarded the Legion of Merit with Oak Leaf Cluster and the Order of the British Empire.

Kenneth Keating remained in the Organized Reserve Corps after the war, and was promoted to brigadier general in 1948.

Kenneth Keating continued to serve until retiring from the military in 1963.

On returning to the United States after the war, Kenneth Keating ran successfully for a Rochester-area seat in the US House of Representatives in the 1946 election.

Kenneth Keating was reelected five times, and served in the 80th, 81st, 82nd, 83rd, 84th and 85th United States Congresses.

Kenneth Keating was regarded as a liberal Republican on many issues, but adopted conservative positions on anticommunism during the Cold War and fighting organized crime.

Kenneth Keating supported the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan and sponsored an early civil rights bill.

Kenneth Keating opposed diplomatic recognition of "Red China" after the Chinese Civil War, and supported allowing the Federal Bureau of Investigation to use tactics including wiretaps on organized crime figures and suspected Communist sympathizers.

Kenneth Keating enhanced his public profile by creating a semi-monthly Rochester-area television show in which he discussed current events with government officials including fellow members of Congress, which increased his personal popularity among his House colleagues, who appreciated the opportunity to publicize their activities.

In 1958, Kenneth Keating was the Republican nominee for the US Senate seat of the retiring Irving Ives, and defeated Democrat Frank Hogan, the New York County District Attorney.

Kenneth Keating served from January 3,1959, to January 3,1965 and was defeated for reelection in 1964 by Robert F Kennedy.

In 1960, Kenneth Keating introduced the Twenty-Third Amendment to the United States Constitution, which allowed residents of the District of Columbia to vote in presidential elections.

In 1962, before the Cuban Missile Crisis that began in October, Keating publicly cited a source who had informed him that the Soviet Union and Cuba had constructed intercontinental ballistic missile facilities in Cuba that could target the United States, and urged President John F Kennedy to take action.

Kenneth Keating accused Kennedy of "carpetbagging", but Democratic strength in what proved to be a wave election nationwide was sufficient to propel Kennedy to victory.

In 1965, Kenneth Keating was elected to the New York Court of Appeals.

Kenneth Keating disagreed with the concept of distinguishing cases if the effect of the court's decision was to overrule them.

In Liberty National Bank v Buscaglia, Keating rejected the argument that national banks should be exempt from paying state taxes on the grounds that they were instruments of the federal government.

Kenneth Keating argued that while the precedent made sense in the eras of candles, lanterns and gas lighting, which were not universally accessible, the availability of electric lighting nearly everywhere had rendered it obsolete.

Kenneth Keating's opinion argued that logically, the statute of limitations should begin at the point where the patient first became aware of the instrument that had not been retrieved.

In 1969, Kenneth Keating was appointed US Ambassador to India, which enabled him to make use of the goodwill and contacts he had established during his World War II military service.

Kenneth Keating's tenure was regarded as a success for US-India relations until its last few months, when the Nixon Administration tacitly supported Pakistan in the Bangladesh Liberation War.

Kenneth Keating served as Ambassador to Israel from August 1973 until his death.

Kenneth Keating's ambassadorship was high profile; he built a network of contacts and conducted one on one diplomacy by entertaining frequently at his home in the Tel Aviv suburbs.

In one instance, Israel's government claimed Kenneth Keating had misinformed US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger about the effects of public opinion in Israel on how much compromising its government could do in attempting to reach agreement with Egypt on the Israeli occupation of the Sinai Peninsula.

Kenneth Keating suffered a heart attack on April 17,1975, while visiting his daughter in New Jersey, and was admitted to Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City.

Kenneth Keating's funeral was held at St John's Episcopal Church in Washington, and he was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

In 1928, Kenneth Keating was married to Louise DePuy, who died in 1968.

Kenneth Keating was the widow of attorney Wendell Davis, who had been a law school classmate of Keating.

Kenneth Keating was a member of American Bar Association, New York State Bar Association, and Rochester Bar Association.

Kenneth Keating belonged to the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Association of the United States Army, and Reserve Officers Association.

Kenneth Keating was a member of the Sons of the American Revolution and Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War.

Kenneth Keating was active in Freemasonry, and attained the 33rd Degree of the Scottish Rite.

Kenneth Keating belonged to the American Political Science Association, and received the organization's first Congressional Distinguished Service Award.

In 1959, Kenneth Keating received the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic to recognize his work on behalf of post-World War II Italian immigrants.

In 1961, Kenneth Keating was awarded the Grand Cross of Merit of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, an award presented by the order to recognize non-Catholics who whose personal and professional lives espouse goodwill towards the Catholic Church.

Brooklyn Law School awards the annual Judge Kenneth B Keating Memorial Prize to a member of each graduating class who demonstrates exceptional achievement in the field of conflict of laws.

The Kenneth Barnard Keating Papers are part of the Rare Books, Special Collections and Preservation holdings at the University of Rochester.