James F. Leonard Quotes
Drafting a treaty is much like drafting a law, and I doubt if the members of this committee could point to a single law whose text they would all agree is absolutely perfect, totally without a flaw. The successive drafts of a treaty get better and better …. Even the final text that is signed and ratified will have flaws, but it will be accepted if it is seen by a strong consensus as substantially better than no treaty at all.
James F. Leonard, U.S. ambassador to the UN Conference on Disarmament, Lead U.S. negotiator for the Biological Weapons Convention House Committee Testimony on the Biological Warfare Treaty
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James Fulton Leonard Jr. was an American diplomat who served as Foreign Service Officer and United States Ambassador to the United Nations (1977–1979). He was born in Osborne, Pennsylvania in May 1920. He served in the United States Army Corps of Engineers during World War II. He was a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy. He was educated at Princeton University (B.S. 1942), Harvard University (1952–53), and Columbia University (1963–64). He married Eleanor Martha Hanson, and they raised five daughters together, as well as a son from Eleanor's previous marriage. He died in August 2020 at the age of 100.
