Attorney General: Elliot L. Richardson
Elliot Lee Richardson was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 20, 1920. He graduated cum laude from Harvard in 1941, served in the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1945, and graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1947. From 1947 to 1948, he clerked for Judge Learned Hand of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He also clerked for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Felix Frankfurter from 1948 to 1949. From 1949 to 1953, and again from 1955 to 1957, he practiced law in Boston. In 1953 and 1954, Richardson was an aide to U.S. Senator Leverett Saltonstall of Massachusetts. He served as Assistant Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare for Legislation from 1957 to 1959, and as Acting Secretary from April to July 1958. He was U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts from 1959 to 1961, and, in 1961, served as Special Assistant to the Attorney General of the United States. In 1964, Richardson was elected Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts and, from 1966 to 1969, served as the state’s attorney general. Richardson was Under Secretary of State from 1969 until he assumed leadership of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare as Secretary from June 1970 to January 1973. He served as Secretary of Defense from January 30, 1973, to May 24, 1973.
President Richard M. Nixon appointed Richardson as Attorney General of the United States on May 25, 1973, from which post he resigned on October 20, 1973. President Gerald R. Ford chose Richardson as Ambassador to the United Kingdom in 1975 and then, in 1976, appointed him Secretary of Commerce. Richardson died in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 30, 1999.
Harold Riley was born in Salford, England, in 1934 and won a scholarship to the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, at age 17. After Slade, he completed a postgraduate year at the University of London and then studied in Italy and Spain. His commissioned portraits include Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Popes Paul VI and John Paul II, and Presidents John F. Kennedy and Gerald R. Ford. This portrait of Attorney General Richardson was painted in 1975 when Richardson was Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Ambassador Richardson donated the portrait to the Department. Riley died in 2023.