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Photo: Dennis Banks, Fidel Castro, Alice Walker, Ramsey Clark, Havana, April 1993. Credit Gloria La Riva
Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General and renowned international human rights attorney who stood against U.S. military aggression worldwide, died peacefully April 9 at his home in New York City, surrounded by close family. He was 93 years old.
As a pre-teen growing up in Albuquerque, I certainly knew his name and that he was attorney general. I could not imagine then that we would become friends, that I would have the honor of working with him and learning what a great humanitarian Ramsey Clark was.
Ramsey Clark, former attorney general and rebel with a cause, dies at 93
By Douglas Martin New York Times,Updated April 10, 2021, 4:44 p.m.
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Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark in 1974.JACK MANNING/NYT
Ramsey Clark, who championed civil rights and liberties as attorney general in the Johnson administration, then devoted much of the rest of his life to defending unpopular causes and infamous people, including Saddam Hussein and others accused of war crimes, died Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 93.
His niece Sharon Welch announced the death.
In becoming the nationâs top law enforcement official, Mr. Clark was part of an extraordinary father-and-son trade-off in the federal halls of power. His appointment prompted his father, Justice Tom C. Clark, to resign from the US Supreme Court to avoid the appearance of any conflict of interest involving cases in which the federal government might come before that bench.
By EMMA BROWN | The Washington Post | Published: April 10, 2021 Ramsey Clark, who was U.S. attorney general under President Lyndon B. Johnson and then, after leaving government service, redefined himself as a relentless critic of American foreign policy and as a courtroom defender of widely reviled figures such as former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, died April 9 at his home in New York City. He was 93. The death was confirmed by a great-niece, Sharon Welch. The precise cause was not immediately known. The son of conservative Supreme Court Justice Tom C. Clark, Clark grew up in the lap of the political establishment and was the last surviving member of Johnson s Cabinet. As a young man, he showed few signs of his firebrand future, but in the half-century that followed his 22-month term as the nation s top prosecutor, he underwent a remarkable political transformation and became a persistent voice of dissent against the government.