Gerard Coad Smith was the chief U.S. delegate to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks in 1969 and the first U.S. Chairman of the Trilateral Commission. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on January 16, 1981 by President Jimmy Carter. Smith was born in New York City. His father, John Thomas Smith, was a lawyer who served as general counsel of General Motors Corporation for many years. Gerard Smith attended Yale Law School and became a practicing attorney in New York City. During World War II he served as a procurement officer for the Department of the Navy in Washington, D.C. In 1950 he returned to government service as a special assistant to Thomas E. Murray, a member of the Atomic Energy Commission. Smith became an expert in the international aspects of the use of nuclear energy and helped brief the members of the AEC on President Dwight D. Eisenhower?s Atoms for Peace proposal in 1953. In 1954 Smith transferred to the Department of State and became a special assistant for atomic energy matters to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. 

May 4th, 1914 in New York City  /  Died:   Jul 4th, 1994 - at age 80