Harold E. Stassen
Harold Stassen is an important figure in Minnesota, United States and international history. His
career in public life spans a period from his election as Dakota County attorney in 1930 at the age
of 23, to the present.
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Born in Minnesota in 1907, Stassen attended the University of Minnesota as an undergraduate,
where he also earned a law degree. He was three times governor of Minnesota (1939-1943);
upon election in 1939 he was 31 years old, the youngest person ever elected governor of a state in
the U.S. He served twice as national chairman of the U.S. Governors Conference. In April 1943,
Governor Stassen resigned to join the Navy and served as assistant to chief of staff Admiral
William F. Halsey in the Pacific Theater. Stassen won a number of decorations for his military
service.
In 1945 President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Stassen as one of the seven U.S. drafters and
signers of the United Nations Charter (President Harry S. Truman reappointed him). Stassen
then served as president of the University of Pennsylvania for four years (1948-52) and from
1953-1958 as a cabinet rank "secretary for peace" for President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Stassen's driving interests for many years have been disarmament, peace, and the United Nations.
He was an early and vocal opponent of the U.S. policy in Vietnam. Stassen has taken to the
presidential campaign trail almost every four years since 1948, and has used that exposure to
make his opinions and values known. In 1981 he entered the Minnesota gubernatorial race.
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The former governor has been in law practice over the years and has a large firm with
headquarters in Philadelphia and with three others offices; he also is associated with a firm in
West St. Paul, where he now makes his home.