Attorney General: Griffin B. Bell
Griffin Boyette Bell was born in Americus, Georgia, on October 31, 1918. He attended Georgia Southwestern College and received a Bachelor of Laws degree cum laude from Mercer University School of Law. In addition, he received the Order of the Coif from Vanderbilt Law School and honorary degrees from several colleges and universities. Bell served in the U.S. Army from 1941–1946, attaining the rank of major. He was admitted to the Georgia bar in 1947 and practiced in Savannah and Rome, Georgia, before joining the Atlanta law firm of King & Spalding in 1953. From January 1959 to October 1961, Bell also held the position of chief of staff to Georgia Governor Ernest Vandiver. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed him a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. In 1976, he returned to King & Spalding as a senior partner.
Bell resigned from the firm on December 31, 1976, after being appointed to the post of Attorney General of the United States by President Jimmy Carter. Bell was sworn in on January 26, 1977, receiving the oath of office from Chief Justice Warren E. Burger. He resigned that office on August 16, 1979, and returned to the practice of law in Atlanta. Over the next three decades, Bell held senior positions with King & Spalding and maintained a prominent profile in community and national affairs. In 1980, he headed the U.S. delegation to the Madrid Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, and, in 1982, served as a co-chair of the Attorney General’s National Task Force on Violent Crime. In 1989, President George H.W. Bush appointed Bell to a senior position on the Commission on Federal Ethics Law Reform. He died in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 5, 2009.
Peter Stevens was born in London, England, in March 1920. He received his art education at the Royal Academy Schools in London, studying portraiture under Sir Walter Westley Russell. Stevens painted a portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt for use during a memorial service for the late President. Among his other works are portraits of several speakers of the Rhode Island House of Representatives and Supreme Court Justices of various states. Stevens painted Attorney General Bell's portrait in 1979. He died in 2001.