Arnold A. Saltzman

Saltzman was born on October 1, 1916, in Brooklyn, New York, to a Russian immigrant father, Isidore, and his wife Dora.{{cite news | url=http://www.longislandpress.com/2013/02/01/arnold-saltzman-a-man-of-war-and-peace/ | title=Arnold Saltzman: A Man of War and Peace | first=Spencer | last=Rumsey | newspaper=Long Island Press | date= February 1, 2013}} It was a Jewish family and he had two sisters. He attended Samuel J. Tilden High School in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn.{{Cite news|title=Arnold A. Saltzman '36, Diplomat and Presidential Adviser | work= Columbia College Today|url=https://www.college.columbia.edu/cct/archive/spring14/obituaries1|access-date=February 10, 2022|publisher=Columbia University | date=Spring 2014 | author-first=Karl | author-last=Daum}} He was elected vice president of the student government,{{cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/107912638/times-union/ | title=Silver Elected President | newspaper=The Brooklyn Daily Times| date=March 9, 1932 | page=3 | via=Newspapers.com}} and was named class orator by his senior class.{{cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/559979700/?terms=%22Arnold%20Saltzman%22&match=1 | title=Tilden Seniors Elect | newspaper=The Brooklyn Daily Times and The Standard Union | date = April 20, 1932 | page=6 (Home Edition) | via=Newspapers.com}}

He then entered Columbia College within Columbia University, majoring in economics and government. He was president of his fraternity, Beta Sigma Rho.{{cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/94757212/ | title=4 Students Honored | newspaper=Brooklyn Times Union | date=May 27, 1935 | page=7A | via=Newspapers.com}} He earned a top-level award for his performance on the Debate Council.{{cite news | url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1936/05/14/88659922.pdf | title=58 at Columbia Win King's Crown | newspaper=The New York Times | date=May 14, 1936}}

Saltzman graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in June 1936,{{cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/15088486/columbia-graduation-sidney-shapiro/ | title=4,660 Degrees Granted Today By Columbia U. | newspaper=Brooklyn Daily Eagle | date=June 2, 1936 | page=4 | via=Newspapers.com}} at the age of 19.

He married his wife, the former Joan Roth, in a Jewish ceremony on November 21, 1942.{{Cite web |title=Joan R. Saltzman dies; LI advocate who worked for racial and social justice was 99 |url=https://www.newsday.com/long-island/obituaries/joan-saltzman-obituary-t79178 |access-date=2023-03-26 |website=Newsday |language=en}} They raised three children, born between 1945 and 1951. They went on to live in Sands Point, New York. His son, Eric Saltzman, served as a director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society.{{Cite web |date=2020-03-24 |title=Eric Saltzman {{!}} Berkman Klein Center |url=https://cyber.harvard.edu/node/90971 |access-date=2023-03-26 |website=cyber.harvard.edu |language=en}}

His first job was taken in 1936 with the Premiere Knitting Company, the family sweater business. He then entered government service, working for the Roosevelt administration as a member of the National Industrial Mobilization Committee. He was in charge of the Military Price Control Section of the Office of Price Administration, with $8 billion of defense and Lend-Lease spending under his purview. He was on the Procurement Policy Board, which had representatives from each large government agency. Saltzman joined the United States Coast Guard; by 1943 he was a warrant officer,{{cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/94722672/ | title=Off the Records | newspaper=The Brooklyn Citizen | date=June 22, 1943 | page=1 | via=Newspapers.com}} and then by 1944 he was an ensign in it.{{cite web | url=http://www.usofficerdocuments.com/uscg/uscgs.html | title=US Coast Guard Officer Documents and Information | publisher=USofficerdocuments.com | accessdate=December 8, 2013}}{{cite book | url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/269255112 | title=Reminiscences of Arnold Saltzman: Oral history, 1996 | publisher=WorldCat | oclc=269255112 | accessdate=December 8, 2013}} During the Korean War, he served in the Office of Price Stabilization.

Saltzman returned to business, becoming vice president and then president of Premiere Knitting. In 1957, Premiere was acquired by Botany Mills, a Passaic, New Jersey manufacturer of textiles that was rapidly expanding and diversifying.{{cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/94721234/ | title=Botany Purchases Its Ninth Concern | newspaper=The Herald-News | location=Passaic–Clifton, New Jersey | date=March 8, 1957 | page=9 | via=Newspapers.com}} He became vice president and a director of Botany Industries, an outgrowth of Botany Mills, from 1959 to 1962. Saltzman was president of the Seagrave Corporation starting in 1961.{{cite news | url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1964/05/31/119074352.pdf | title=Earnings Raised by Diversifying | first=William M. | last=Freeman | newspaper=The New York Times | date=May 31, 1964 | page=F20}} He took a company that mostly made fire-fighting equipment and diversified it via acquisition and other changes into one that did leather processing, made paint and industrial finishes, constructed low-cost houses, and sold mortgages. He remained president of Seagrave into the 1970s.{{cite news | url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1974/05/12/93270369.pdf | title=Congressional Unit In State Designates Saltzman as Unifier | newspaper=The New York Times | date=May 12, 1974}} Around 1970, Saltzman also headed a group that had a 24 percent interest in Trans Beacon Corporation, a movie distribution and theater operation that was a remnant of RKO Pictures.{{cite news | author-last=Andreder | author-first=Steven S. | title=Tied Up in Trafficking: The Fate of Fifth Avenue Coach Lines Remains in Doubt | newspaper= Barron's National Business and Financial Weekly | date= December 28, 1970 | url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/350531722 | pages=9, 10, 12 | id={{ProQuest|350531722}} }}

In 1957, Saltzman ran for the board of trustees of the village of Great Neck Estates, New York, on the ticket of the newly created local Village Party and in opposition to the entrenched local Citizens Party.{{cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/107914051/newsday-nassau-edition/ | title=New Party Offers a Race In Great Neck Estates Vote | newspaper=Newsday | location=Long Island, New York | date=February 6, 1957 | via=Newspapers.com}} Saltzman and the other Village Party candidates were defeated by decisive margins.{{cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/107914783/newsday-nassau-edition/ | title=Ruling Parties Top 4 N. Shore Elections | newspaper=Newsday | location=Long Island, New York | date=March 20, 1957 | page=18 | via=Newspapers.com}}

A lifelong Democrat, Saltzman served five U.S. presidents as envoys on diplomatic missions. He was a trouble-shooter for the U.S. Department of State during the Kennedy administration and Johnson administration years. He helped negotiate the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in the mid-late 1960s.

Saltzman was a hopeful for the Democratic nomination in the United States Senate election in New York, 1974.{{cite news | url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1974/05/07/99421729.pdf | title=Ramsey Clark Enters U. S. Senate Race | first=Frank | last=Lynn | newspaper=The New York Times | date=May 7, 1974 | page=41}} But he had little support in the New York State Democratic Committee, and instead he was chosen as an unsalaried advisor to New York State's Congressional delegation as it tried to heal internal divisions. In 1976, he served as chair of the federal Advisory Committee on National Growth Policy Processes; it published a report entitled Forging America's Future: Strategies for National Growth and Development.{{cite web | url=https://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/220.html#220.17.3 | title=220.17.3 Records of the Advisory Committee on National Growth Policy Processes | publisher=National Archives and Records Administration | accessdate=December 8, 2013}}

He was co-author of the 1990 book Bending with the Winds: Kurt Waldheim and the United Nations.{{cite book | title=Bending with the Winds: Kurt Waldheim and the United Nations [Hardcover] | isbn=0275937011 | last1=Finger | first1=Seymour Maxwell | last2=Saltzman | first2=Arnold A. | year=1990 }} In its review, Foreign Affairs magazine said that the book's examination of Kurt Waldheim's career was "meticulously undertaken" and that its recommendations for how the Secretary-General of the United Nations could better be chosen "[make] the book important today".{{cite news | url=http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/46286/andrew-j-pierre/bending-with-the-winds-kurt-waldheim-and-the-united-nations | title=Bending With The Winds: Kurt Waldheim And The United Nations | first=Andrew J. | last=Pierre | magazine=Foreign Affairs | date=Spring 1991}}

Still in business, Saltzman headed Vista Resources (which Seagrave had become), a diversified public company, until selling majority interest in it in 1989.{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/25/business/making-a-difference-a-little-republic-s-negotiator.html | title=Making a Difference; A Little Republic's Negotiator | first=Daniel F. | last=Cuff | newspaper=The New York Times | date=October 25, 1992}} He became chair of the Windsor Production Corporation, a privately held oil, real estate, and investment firm. In 1992, he was named by Kyrgyzstan, newly independent of the Soviet Union, as its representative in negotiations for natural-resource arrangements with American companies.

In 1993, Saltzman pleaded guilty in United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York to charges of insurance fraud related to a $610,000 claim before Chubb Insurance on behalf of a leather products company.{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1993/09/04/nyregion/2-on-long-island-plead-guilty-in-insurance-claim-schemes.html | title=2 on Long Island Plead Guilty in Insurance-Claim Schemes | newspaper=The New York Times | date=September 4, 1993}} By 2001, there had still been no sentencing hearing in his case, a delay that legal experts said was extraordinary.{{cite news | url=http://libn.com/2001/03/09/still-guilty-after-all-these-years/ | title= Still guilty after all these years? | newspaper=Long Island Business News | date=March 9, 2001}} In 2002, having previously made financial restitution, Saltzman attempted to withdraw that felony plea, have it expunged, and substitute a misdemeanor plea instead, but a federal judge denied the request.{{cite news | url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/409230132 | title=Nation in Brief | newspaper=The Washington Post | date=January 13, 2002 | page=A7 |id={{ProQuest|409230132}}}}

In 2003, Columbia University's Institute of War and Peace Studies was renamed the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies.{{cite news | url=http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/03/04/arnoldSaltzman_war_peace.html | title=War and Peace Studies Institute Named for Arnold A. Saltzman | first=Katie | last=Moore | publisher=Columbia University | date=April 11, 2003}} Two endowed chairs under the Saltzman name were also added at that time. Saltzman later said, "Anything that can fight war and promote peace I'm for!"

As a benefactor, Saltzman and his wife played a part in the creation of the Joan and Arnold Saltzman Community Services Center at Hofstra University, where he was a trustee emeritus. The center provides health services both to Hofstra and the local community and additionally provides educational and practitioner experience for Hofstra students.{{cite web | url=http://www.hofstra.edu/Community/slzctr/slzctr_mission.html | title=Saltzman Center – Community | publisher=Hofstra University | accessdate=December 6, 2013 | url-status=dead | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20081003065102/http://www.hofstra.edu/Community/slzctr/slzctr_mission.html | archivedate=October 3, 2008 }}

He was founding president of the Nassau County Museum of Art,{{cite news | url=http://long-island.newsday.com/things-to-do/museums/marc-chagall-show-opens-at-nassau-museum-1.3845511 | title=Marc Chagall show opens at Nassau Museum | first=Steve | last=Parks | newspaper=Newsday | date=July 19, 2012}} having been given the charge in the late 1980s by the county executive, Thomas Gulotta, to revive and reimagine the county's former Fine Arts Museum. For this, Newsday named him one of "23 Long Islanders whose track records say they're worth watching" in 1989.{{cite news | author-first=Peggy | author-last=Brown | title=On The Brink Of A Big '89: Here are 23 Long Islanders whose track records say they're worth watching in the coming year | newspaper=Newsday | date=January 8, 1989 | url= https://www.proquest.com/docview/278038727 | page=4 | id={{ProQuest|278038727}}}} He took a hands-on role in the museum task, to the extent of sometimes coming in direct conflict with the director of the museum.{{cite news | author-first=Karin | author-last=Lipson | title=Museum Head Cites Reason for Quitting | newspaper= Newsday | date=May 9, 1990 | page=21 | url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/278189756 | id={{ProQuest|278189756}} }} The couple are reflected in the name of the Arnold and Joan Saltzman Fine Arts Building there, where he became chairman emeritus. It was given this name following a large-scale renovation of the central building on the museum.{{cite web | url=http://www.nassaumuseum.com/history.php | title=Museum History | publisher=Nassau County Museum of Art | accessdate=December 6, 2013 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131212014006/http://www.nassaumuseum.com/history.php | archive-date=December 12, 2013 | url-status=dead }} In 2012, Saltzman was the originating force behind bringing a world-class Marc Chagall exhibit to the museum.

Saltzman also served as a trustee of the Baltimore Museum of Art and was involved with acquisitions for the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 2012, the library in Port Washington, New York, named its reading room after the couple following a large gift from the Saltzman Foundation.{{cite news | url=http://librarytrustees.org/blog/2012/11/port-washington-library-on-long-island-ny-receives-generous-donation-from-ambassador-mrs-saltzman/ | title=Port Washington Library on Long Island, NY receives generous donation from Ambassador & Mrs. Saltzman | publisher=Library Trustees Association of New York State | date=November 1, 2012 | access-date=December 9, 2013 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131211191949/http://librarytrustees.org/blog/2012/11/port-washington-library-on-long-island-ny-receives-generous-donation-from-ambassador-mrs-saltzman/ | archive-date=December 11, 2013 | url-status=dead }}

Saltzman died on January 2, 2014, at his home in Sands Point, New York.{{cite web | url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nytimes/obituary.aspx?page=lifestory&pid=168924301 | title=Paid Death Notices: Arnold A. Saltzman | work=The New York Times | date=January 5, 2014 | page=A23}} Also see {{cite web | url=http://sipa.columbia.edu/news-center/article/ambassador-arnold-a-saltzman-1916-2014 | title=Ambassador Arnold A. Saltzman, 1916–2014 | publisher=Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies | date=January 8, 2014}}

Saltzman was given honorary degrees by Adelphi University in 1985{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/05/24/nyregion/adelphi-president-to-retire.html | title=Adelphi President to Retire | first=John T. | last=McQuiston | newspaper=The New York Times | date=May 24, 1985 }} and Hofstra University in 1986.{{cite web | url=http://www.hofstra.edu/alumni/newsevents/newsevents_hondegrees.html | title=Honorary Degrees | publisher=Hofstra University | accessdate=December 11, 2013 | url-status=dead | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20131214090340/http://www.hofstra.edu/alumni/newsevents/newsevents_hondegrees.html | archivedate=December 14, 2013 }}

In 2002, Saltzman was presented with the Order of Honor from the Republic of Georgia, "in recognition of his notable personal contribution to the implementation of international aid programs [and] his active support of Georgia's interest and generous charity work".{{cite news|url=http://www.antonnews.com/manhassetpress/2003/01/03/news/saltzman.html |title=Ambassador Arnold A. Saltzman Recognized by Republic of Georgia With Order of Honor |newspaper=Manhasset Press |date=January 3, 2003 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20131213124145/http://www.antonnews.com/manhassetpress/2003/01/03/news/saltzman.html |archivedate=December 13, 2013 }}

{{reflist|30em}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20131204105933/http://www.nassaumuseum.com/about.php Arnold & Joan Saltzman Fine Art Building at Nassau County Museum of Art]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20140516102236/http://www.hofstra.edu/Community/slzctr/ Joan and Arnold Saltzman Community Services Center at Hofstra University]
• [http://www.siwps.com/ Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies]

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Category:1916 births

Category:2014 deaths

Category:People from Sands Point, New York

Category:American philanthropists

Category:American businesspeople

Category:Diplomats from New York City

Category:American art collectors

Category:Philanthropists from New York (state)

Category:American non-fiction writers

Category:United States Coast Guard officers

Category:New York (state) Democrats

Category:Samuel J. Tilden High School alumni

Category:21st-century American Jews

Category:Columbia College (New York) alumni