Sol Linowitz Dies; Carter-Era Envoy Helped Found Xerox

In Egypt, President Anwar Sadat, right, meets with U.S. diplomat Sol Linowitz in 1980. Working for President Jimmy Carter's administration, Linowitz made strides in laying groundwork for Middle East peace as well as negotiating the Panama Canal treaties. He was a nationally recognized advocate of legal ethics. (AP)

Earlier, there had been talk among New York Democrats about drafting him to run for governor against Nelson Rockefeller. Others questioned whether he was mean enough.

In the 1966 New York Times profile, Martin Mayer put it this way: "As an advocate, Linowitz specialized in the politesse of the courts of appeals; as a counselor, he was engaged in the impersonalities of long-range planning. As a liberal Democrat functioning in a highly conservative business community, he developed the habit of saying mostly what his interlocutors would like him to say, and inserting, with minimum discomfort, the needle of disagreement."

Those diplomatic skills were invaluable once he plunged into the Panama Canal negotiations.

"He felt very strongly about it," Linowes recalled. "He had a very deep feeling for Latin Americans in general and the way they had been treated and the way they had been dealt with by our government. He also worked very well with Ellsworth Bunker."

The president wanted a treaty acceptable to the Panamanians, a treaty that fully protected U.S. interests and one that the Senate could ratify. Mr. Linowitz soon discovered that the most difficult part of the assignment was getting the domestic political support needed for Senate ratification.

"The far right was absolutely sure that the nation's security was being damaged, and I bore the brunt of their attacks," he recalled in the Bar Report interview. "My life was threatened, and my family was threatened."

He drew a distinction between legitimate opposition, personified by Ronald Reagan, among others, and what he called "the far-right crazies." He made speeches across the country seeking to allay concerns about giving up control of the canal. The treaties were ratified in 1979 by the narrowest of margins.

Mr. Linowitz continued to take government assignments from the Carter White House.

On Nov. 6, 1979, he became Carter's personal representative for the Middle East peace negotiations. Those 14 months, he wrote, "were, as the President had promised, the most interesting and exciting -- and uncertain -- of my life. They might also, I think, have been the most productive, if the incoming Reagan administration had built in early 1981 on the foundations we had laid for them."

Mr. Linowitz's second book, "The Betrayed Profession: Lawyering in the 20th Century" (1994), reflected his concern that attorneys had inherited a noble profession and transformed it into a "huckstering business operation."

He called for more ethics courses in law school, as well as more attention to the philosophical, social and literary underpinnings of the Western legal system.

In a 1995 speech, he urged lawyers "to demonstrate that their concern as lawyers is with the human and the humane, that they are truly committed to the principle of equality of access to the law, that lawyers accept the obligation to serve all of the people in our society. Then -- and only then -- will lawyers find that we have won and deserve the appreciation and respect of those we seek to serve -- then and only then will we once again be able to say with dignity and honor: 'I am truly proud to be a lawyer.' "

In 1998, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. "Receiving advice from Sol Linowitz on international diplomacy is like getting trumpet lessons from the angel Gabriel," President Bill Clinton said at the award ceremony, quoting Thomas F. "Mack" McLarty, a mutual friend and former special envoy to the Americas. "If every world leader had half the vision Sol Linowitz does," Clinton added, "we'd have about a tenth as many problems as we've got in this whole world today."

In addition to his brother of Chevy Chase, survivors include his wife of 65 years, Evelyn (Toni) Zimmerman Linowitz of Washington; four daughters, Anne Mazursky of Ottawa, June Linowitz of Bethesda, Jan Wadden of Wynnewood, Pa., and Ronni Jolles of Great Falls; two brothers, David F. Linowes of Chevy Chase and Harry Linowes of Bethesda; and eight grandchildren.