Obituaries

Richard A. PooleForeign Service Officer

Richard A. Poole, 86, a Foreign Service officer who was a member of a team that drafted a new Japanese constitution after World War II, died Feb. 26 of a heart attack at his home in McLean.

As a 26-year-old Navy officer in 1946, Mr. Poole served on a committee chosen by the staff of Gen. Douglas A. MacArthur to create a constitution for Japan and define the role of the emperor. Mr. Poole was credited by a Japanese newspaper with developing the idea that the emperor should have a symbolic role in Japanese society, similar to that of the British monarch. The purpose in limiting the power of the emperor was to foster a democratic, constitutional government in Japan.

Mr. Poole was born in Yokohama, Japan, to a family that had been involved in the import-export trade for decades. After an earthquake in Japan, Mr. Poole's family moved to Summit, N.J., in 1923. After graduating from Haverford College in Pennsylvania in 1940, he promptly joined the Foreign Service.

He served in the Navy in World War II and during the postwar period in which he served on the Japanese constitutional committee. After returning to the Foreign Service, he held diplomatic posts in countries on five continents, including Canada, Colombia, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore and Burkina Faso. He retired in 1979.

Mr. Poole lived in McLean and was a member of the board of directors of the McLean Citizens Association and served on the McLean Planning Committee. He was also chairman of the McLean Trees Committee and coordinated the planting of thousands of trees in the city. He became known locally as "Mr. Trees." In recent years, he helped found the McLean Trees Foundation.

Survivors include his wife of 48 years, Jillian H. Poole of McLean; two sons, Anthony H. Poole of Arlington and Colin R. Poole of Santa Fe, N.M.; a brother; and two granddaughters.

John Martine CourtNavy Captain, Attorney

John Martine Court, 90, a retired Navy captain and attorney who lived what he described as "a most felicitous life," died of lung cancer March 1 at his home in Harwood.

Capt. Court was born in Philadelphia, the son of a naval officer, and grew up in the Philippines and Washington. A Washington Senators fan and a schoolboy debater, he graduated from Western High School in 1932. He enrolled in the U.S. Naval Academy, rooming with another Western High School graduate, John Harllee Carmichael, and the pair later married sisters.

After graduation, Capt. Court served aboard the cruiser USS New Orleans, and in 1940, he attended postgraduate school in naval architecture. During World War II, Capt. Court served in the Pacific theater, first with the Pacific Fleet Service Force at Pearl Harbor and then shipboard with Service Squadron Ten, after the campaign through the Marshall Islands, the Philippines, Okinawa and Tokyo Bay. During the Korean War, he served in Japan and then aboard ship near the Straits of Tsushima.

After Korea, he received a master's degree in business administration from George Washington University in 1952. His final tours of naval duty were as assistant comptroller of the Bureau of Ships, first in Washington and then in Norfolk.

After his 1959 retirement from the Navy, he graduated from the College of William and Mary's law school in 1961. In 1967, he returned to Maryland where, for the next 16 years until he retired, Capt. Court served as assistant county solicitor for Anne Arundel County. During that time, he was also a founding member of and legal counsel to the Chesapeake Environmental Protection Association.

He enjoyed his home overlooking the West River and the Chesapeake Bay, where he and his wife entertained an endless stream of visitors. He also enjoyed travel, both domestic and foreign. He was a tennis player, gardener and sailor.