Philip Klutznick

Philip M. Klutznick, a Chicago real estate developer, investor and philanthropist who was long prominent in Jewish communal affairs and served as Secretary of Commerce in the Carter Administration. Mr. Klutznick was national president of B'nai B'rith, the service organization, from 1953 to 1959 and president of the World Jewish Congress, an umbrella organization of Jewish communities in 64 countries, from 1977 to 1979. Mr. Klutznick was Secretary of Commerce in 1980 and 1981, after being nominated by President Jimmy Carter to succeed Juanita M. Kreps. By then Mr. Klutznick had wide experience in business and finance and in Democratic fund-raising. He was also a strong supporter of President Carter and had defended him against criticism among Jews during the tense negotiating in 1978 that led to the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty. Other Government posts that Mr. Klutznick held included commissioner of the Federal Public Housing Authority from 1944 to 1946. President John F. Kennedy named him United States representative to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations with the rank of ambassador in 1961 and 1962. Mr. Klutznick was also a member of several American delegations to the United Nations General Assembly. Mr. Klutznick was the founder and head of the Urban Investment and Development Company in Chicago, which later became a wholly owned subsidiary of the Aetna Life and Casualty Company. Born in Kansas City, Mo., he attended the University of Kansas and the University of Nebraska and received a law degree in 1930 from Creighton University in Omaha. He worked as a lawyer and became involved in housing construction. During World War II, the Roosevelt Administration put Mr. Klutznick in charge of building houses for defense workers in the eastern United States. In this capacity he was involved in the building of Oak Ridge, Tenn., where major work was done on developing the atomic bomb. After the war, he was active in building suburban shopping malls and other projects in the Chicago area. He married Ethel Riekes in 1930, and she died in 1996. He is survived by four sons, Robert, of Boulder, Colo., Samuel, of Jackson Hole, Wyo., and Thomas and James; a daughter, Bettylu Saltzman, of Chicago; 13 grandchildren, and 9 great-grandchildren.