Background
Donovan was born on February 29, 1916 in the Bronx, New York. He was the son of John D. Donovan, a surgeon, and Harriet F. O'Connor, a piano teacher.
educator lawyer military officer
Donovan was born on February 29, 1916 in the Bronx, New York. He was the son of John D. Donovan, a surgeon, and Harriet F. O'Connor, a piano teacher.
Donovan was educated at All Hallows Institute in New York City and Fordham (B. A. , 1937), and received his law degree from Harvard in 1940.
Donovan worked for the Office of Scientific Research and Development and the Office of Strategic Services during World War II, attaining the rank of Navy commander. Afterward, he was named associate prosecutor of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, where he assembled photographic evidence for use against Nazi officers charged with war crimes.
Returning to private practice, Donovan served as chief counsel in major trials across the United States. In 1950, he was a founding partner of the Watters & Donovan Law Firm in New York City's financial district.
In 1957, Donovan accepted a request from the Brooklyn Bar Association to represent Rudolf Abel, a high-ranking Soviet spy who had immersed himself in an artistic community before his arrest for espionage. Despite overwhelming evidence against his client, Donovan managed to avoid the death penalty in part by arguing that Abel could prove useful for a prisoner swap should an American of similar rank be captured by the Soviets.
That foresight proved keen when American jet pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down in the Soviet Union and imprisoned for espionage in 1960. Due to his relationship with Abel, Donovan became the conduit between the U. S. government and Soviet intelligence, and in early 1962 he was sent to Europe to "explore the situation. " Following a week of negotiations at the Soviet embassy in East Berlin, Powers and Abel were simultaneously released from custody on the Glienicke Bridge between East and West Germany on February 10, 1962. Donovan subsequently received the Distinguished Intelligence Medal from the Central Intelligence Agency for his work.
Having earned a reputation for his high-stakes negotiating skills, Donovan was tapped by the Cuban Families Committee to obtain freedom for detained Cubans and Americans imprisoned during the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961. Over the course of several trips to the island, one of which included his 18-year-old son, Donovan gained the confidence of Cuban Premier Fidel Castro. He eventually secured the release of more than 1, 100 survivors of the invasion, as well as another 8, 500 political prisoners.
Named vice president of the New York City Board of Education in 1961, Donovan unsuccessfully ran for a U. S. Senate seat in 1962. He was elected president of the Board of Education in 1963, and oversaw the program during a two-year period marked by strife over the desegregation of city schools. Around this time, Donovan wrote two memoirs: Strangers on a Bridge (1964) and Challenges (1967).
In 1968, Donovan was appointed president of Brooklyn's Pratt Institute, where he faced more conflict from both students and faculty over civil rights and antiwar demonstrations. He died of heart failure at Brooklyn's Methodist Hospital on January 19, 1970.
Donovan is widely known for negotiating the 1960-1962 exchange of captured American pilot for a Soviet spy, and for negotiating the 1962 release and return of 9, 703 prisoners held by Cuba after the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion. The story of his success in arranging the Powers-Abel exchange has been brought to the big screen in Bridge of Spies (2015), with film icon Tom Hanks starring as the New York lawyer thrust into delicate Cold War terrain. In October 2016, Fordham inducted Donovan into its Hall of Honor in conjunction with its Dodransbicentennial, the 175th anniversary of the school, in a mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral with Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who was also named a founder of the school. Also in October 2016, Donovan was inducted into the All Hallows School Hall of Fame.
Donovan married Mary E. McKenna on May 30, 1941; they had four children.
