governor
Leverett Saltonstall took which position from 1939 to 1943?
Leverett Saltonstall Leverett A . Saltonstall ( September 1 , 1892June 17 , 1979 ) was an American lawyer and politician from Massachusetts . He served three two-year terms as the 55th Governor of Massachusetts , and for more than twenty years as a United States Senator ( 1945–1967 ) . Saltonstall was internationalist in foreign policy and moderate on domestic policy , serving as a well-liked mediating force in the Republican Party . He was the only member of the Republican Senate leadership to vote for the censure of Joseph McCarthy . Early years . Leverett Saltonstall was born in Chestnut Hill , Massachusetts , to Richard Middlecott Saltonstall and Eleanor Brooks Saltonstall . The Saltonstall family , a wealthy Boston Brahmin family , had deep colonial roots , as did that of his mother . Saltonstall was able to trace his ancestral roots to the Mayflower ; his grandfather and great-grandfather , both also named Leverett Saltonstall . His father was a lawyer ; his mother was the daughter of Peter C . Brooks III , a beneficiary of the large fortune of his same-named grandfather . He was educated at the private Noble and Greenough School , and then attended the Evans School for Boys in Mesa , Arizona , an upper-crust ranch school , along with Nicholas Roosevelt , nephew to family friend Theodore Roosevelt . He then entered Harvard , graduating in 1914 , and graduated from Harvard Law School in 1917 . He was active in varsity sports at Harvard , notably serving as captain of the Junior Varsity crew team that won the prestigious Grand Challenge Cup at the Henley Royal Regatta in 1914 – the first American crew ever to do so . He also played football and hockey , scoring a dramatic overtime goal in a 1914 win over the legendary Hobey Bakers Princeton team . Saltonstall married Alice Wesselhoeft ( 1893–1981 ) of Jaffrey , New Hampshire , in 1916 , while still in law school . Together they had six children , including Emily ( 1920–2006 ) , at one time the daughter-in-law of Richard Byrd and a former WAVE ; Peter Brooks Saltonstall , killed in action on Guam in 1944 ; William L . Saltonstall ( 1927–2009 ) , a member of the Massachusetts Senate ; and Susan ( 1930–1994 ) , a horse breeder . Military service and entry into politics . After graduation , Saltonstall entered the United States Army . He served as a first lieutenant in the 301st Field Artillery Regiment in the 76th Division in World War I , spending six months in France . He was discharged in 1919 , and then entered the law firm of his uncle . Saltonstall , a socially progressive Republican , entered politics as an alderman in Newton , Massachusetts , serving from 1920 to 1922 , while simultaneously serving as second assistant district attorney of Middlesex County under his uncle , Endicott Peabody Saltonstall , from 1921 to 1922 . He was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives that same year ; there he rose to the position of Speaker of the House , which he held from 1929 to 1937 . In 1930 Saltonstall became a compatriot of the Massachusetts Society of the Sons of the American Revolution . Governor of Massachusetts . In 1936 , Saltonstall decided to seek the Republican nomination for Governor of Massachusetts . In the party convention , conservative forces prevailed in securing the nomination for John W . Haigis . Saltonstalls friends were able to engineer his nomination for lieutenant governor . Both Haigis and Saltonstall were defeated by their Democratic rivals , although Saltonstalls margin of defeat , just over 7,000 votes , was small enough to merit a recount ; he demurred . He ran again for governor two years later , and won a decisive victory over former Boston Mayor James Michael Curley , who had been involved in a bruising Democratic primary fight against the incumbent Charles F . Hurley . He was reelected in 1940 and 1942 ; the 1940 election win was by an extremely narrow margin . During his tenure , Saltonstall mediated a Teamsters strike , reduced taxes , and retired 90 percent of the states debt . He served as President of the National Governors Association from 1943 to 1944 . In 1944 , he also served as the fifth President of the Council of State Governments . U.S . Senator . In 1944 , Saltonstall was elected to the United States Senate in a special election to fill the unexpired term created by the resignation of U.S . Senator Henry Cabot Lodge , Jr . He was re-elected three times , serving from 1945 to 1967 . Early in his first term , in April 1945 he was one of a dozen Senators and Congressmen who toured the Buchenwald Concentration Camp at the invitation of Gen . Dwight Eisenhower to attest to the reality of Nazi atrocities . Those he defeated included John H . Corcoran in 1944 , John I . Fitzgerald in 1948 , Foster Furcolo in 1954 , and Thomas J . OConnor in 1960 . During his tenure in the Senate , he served as the Senate Republican Whip and on five influential Senate committees . He also served as the chair of the Senate Republican Conference , 1957–1966 . He was viewed as a political moderate , and served as a mediating force between the partys conservative and progressive wings . He was an unspectacular but effective legislator , good at drafting legislation and finding compromise language . When he left office , after more than thirty years in politics , he had few political enemies . Saltonstall voted in favor of the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 , 1960 , and 1964 , as well as the 24th Amendment to the U.S . Constitution and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 . Death and legacy . Saltonstall opted not to run for reelection in 1966 , in part to provide an opportunity for his seat to Edward Brooke , a rising star in Massachusetts Republican circles . He retired to his farm in Dover , where he spent his remaining years as a gentleman farmer . Leverett Saltonstall died of congestive heart failure in 1979 aged 86 , and is buried in Harmony Grove Cemetery in Salem , Massachusetts . The Saltonstall Building in downtown Boston is named for him .