Lester S. Hyman ’52

Lester S. Hyman ’52, of Washington, D.C.; May 9. As a reporter for the BDH, Hyman traveled to Washington, D.C., to cover a ceremony in the Oval Office in which President Harry Truman signed a proclamation declaring the North Atlantic Treaty in effect, according to Hyman’s obituary. After earning his law degree from Columbia University School of Law and honorable discharge from the U.S. Navy, Hyman began his legal career as an attorney in the Corporate Finance Division of the Securities and Exchange Commission. He then moved to Massachusetts, where he was active in Democratic politics. He served as chief assistant to Governor Endicott Peabody, secretary of commerce and development for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts; and chairman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party in the late 1960s. When his term as chairman was completed in 1969, he relocated to Washington, D.C., joining the law firm Leva, Hawes, Symington, Martin and Oppenheimer. He later cofounded the law firm Swidler Berlin. He helped launch the non-partisan Center for National Policy, monitoring elections in Haiti. He served on the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial Commission and vetted candidates for key cabinet posts in the Clinton administration. He had a deep affinity for the British Virgin Islands and built a home on Tortola in 1987. For more than three decades, he championed the territory’s interests in Washington, D.C. He was a committed board member of the H. Lavity Stoutt Community College and the National Parks Trust in the BVI.