Deputy Attorney General: Philip B. Heymann

Philip B. Heymann was the 27th Deputy Attorney General of the United States. He served as the Department’s second-ranking official from May 1993 to March 1994.

At the time of his nomination for the post of Deputy Attorney General, Mr. Heymann was the James Barr Ames Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, an appointment he attained in 1989. He also served there as Associate Dean from 1985 to 1987 and as Director of the Center for Criminal Justice from 1981.

In 1978, Mr. Heymann was appointed Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division. He replaced Benjamin R. Civiletti, who had been nominated to be Deputy Attorney General. During his tenure in Criminal Division, Mr. Heymann oversaw many investigations and prosecutions of note, including Abscam, the Jonestown massacre, and Vesco.

In the early 1970s, Mr. Heymann was a top aide to Watergate Special Prosecutors Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski, concentrating on the investigation of the White House “plumbers” unit. Mr. Heymann assisted in the trial of White House aide John D. Ehrlichman for his role in the break-in of the office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, who had leaked to news media the secret history of the Vietnam War known as the Pentagon Papers.

From 1961 to 1965, Mr. Heymann served in the Solicitor General’s office under Solicitor General Archibald Cox. He then spent four years at the U.S. Department of State, where he first oversaw the bureau of security and consular affairs and later was an executive assistant to then-Undersecretary of State Nicholas deB. Katzenbach. Mr. Heymann became a criminal law professor at Harvard Law School in 1969.

A native of Pennsylvania, Mr. Heymann graduated with top honors in 1954 from Yale University and was a Fulbright Scholar at the Sorbonne (University of Paris). He served in the U.S. Air Force from 1955 to 1957 and graduated third in his class from Harvard Law School in 1960, after which he clerked for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court John M. Harlan II.