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Historical Biography

Deputy Attorney General: Byron R. White

Portrait of Deputy Attorney General Byron R. White
White, Byron R.
6th Deputy Attorney General, -

Byron R. White was the 6th Deputy Attorney General of the United States. He served as the Department’s second-ranking official from January 1961 to April 1962.

President John F. Kennedy nominated Mr. White for the position of Deputy Attorney General shortly after assuming the presidency. Early the following year, President Kennedy selected Deputy Attorney General White as his nominee to replace the retiring Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Charles E. Whittaker.

Mr. White clerked for Chief Justice of the United States Frederick M. Vinson for the 1946-1947 term. He then practiced with a Denver law firm from 1947 until 1961.

A native of Colorado, Mr. White was valedictorian at the University of Colorado (1938) and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and he won a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford after graduation but deferred for a year to play professional football. He played only one season but led the league in rushing as a rookie. After leaving the NFL, Mr. White traveled to the United Kingdom to complete his Rhodes Scholarship. He returned stateside when World War II began and entered Yale Law School. He subsequently took a leave of absence from Yale to play the 1940-1941 NFL seasons. Mr. White’s legal education remained incomplete when he joined the United States Navy in 1942 to serve as an intelligence officer. When the war ended, he returned to Yale and attained his law degree in 1946.

Updated February 29, 2024