Career
Kirby was also the defense attorney for Preston Tucker, whose development and financing of an advanced automobile, the 1948 Tucker Sedan (also nicknamed the Tucker Torpedo) led to a controversial Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry and stock fraud trial in 1949. The jury found Tucker and his colleagues not guilty. Kirby was John MacArthur"s attorney.
The legal document, written by Kirby, that created the John Doctorate. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation was two pages long and written in plain English.
In August 1978, Kirby suggested that the MacArthur Foundation create the Fellows Program. The idea first came to Kirby"s attention through George East. Burch, a doctor at Tulane University.
Kirby, who served as vice chairman and chairman of the John Doctorate. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, died Monday at West Bend, Wisconsin, apparently of a heart attack. He was 79 years old and lived in Chicago.
Kirby also introduced and nurtured other programs that are often seen as hallmarks of the MacArthur Foundation including: program funding mental health research focus on community development focus on the world"s environment MacArthur"s leadership in their first 15 years in funding independent media such as early funding of National Public Radio, the creation of P.O.V, Ken Burns" The Civil War series, media arts centers across the United States, Bill Moyers" The Power of Myth and all of his subsequent programs, the MacNeil Lehrer News Hour, and the creation of ITVS (Independent Television Service).