29 Facts About Richard Thornburgh

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.

Richard Thornburgh attended Mercersburg Academy then Yale University from which he obtained an engineering degree in 1954.

Richard 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.

Richard Thornburgh subsequently was awarded honorary degrees from 32 other colleges and universities.

Richard Thornburgh married Ginny Hooton, and they had three sons together .

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In 1963 Richard Thornburgh was remarried, to Ginny Judson, with whom he had another son, Bill, in 1966.

Ginny Richard Thornburgh was a former schoolteacher from New York, who holds degrees from Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, and the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Richard Thornburgh received the Hubert H Humphrey Civil Rights Award from the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights in April 2005.

In 1969 President of the United States Richard Nixon appointed Thornburgh as the U S Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, where he earned a reputation as being tough on organized crime.

In 1971, Richard Thornburgh successfully took Pittsburgh steel companies to court for polluting rivers based on the 1899 Refuse Act.

Richard Thornburgh won the primary over six other contenders, including Arlen Specter, who had become well known as a former Democrat who switched parties and was elected the Philadelphia County district attorney in 1965 and the more conservative David W Marston, a former U S attorney in Philadelphia, who was controversially dismissed in 1978 by the Jimmy Carter administration after Marston launched prosecution of two Democratic congressmen and two Democratic state legislators.

Richard Thornburgh was widely recognized for economic development and the establishment of the Ben Franklin Partnership, and for implementing welfare reform programs.

Richard Thornburgh was responsible for consolidating all of Pennsylvania's state-owned colleges and universities into the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education.

Richard Thornburgh created the Governor's Schools, which were summer programs for talented and gifted high school students.

In January 1987, Governor Richard Thornburgh was made an honorary Pennsylvania State Police Trooper and this honor was presented to him upon the graduation of the 64th Pennsylvania State Police Academy Class at Hershey, Pennsylvania.

Richard Thornburgh was the first Republican to serve two successive terms as governor of the commonwealth.

Richard 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.

Richard Thornburgh established strong ties with law enforcement agencies around the world to help combat drug trafficking, money laundering, terrorism and international white-collar crime.

Richard Thornburgh oversaw the major environmental litigation that resulted from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989.

All told, Richard Thornburgh served in the Justice Department under five Presidents, beginning in Pittsburgh when serving as United States Attorney, from 1969 to 1975.

Richard 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.

Richard Thornburgh served a one-year appointment as Under-Secretary General at the United Nations at the personal request of President Bush.

In 2004, Richard Thornburgh was asked by CBS to undertake an independent investigation of the so-called Rathergate controversy with former Associated Press CEO, Lou Boccardi.

Richard Thornburgh was hired by the family of the late coach Joe Paterno to conduct an independent review of the Freeh report.

Richard 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.

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Richard Thornburgh concedes that change is difficult because equal segments of Puerto Ricans desire statehood or continuation of the status quo.

Richard Thornburgh served as an observer to the Russian Federation's first legislative and presidential elections.

Richard Thornburgh was a former member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Dick Richard Thornburgh Papers were donated to the University of Pittsburgh in 1998.