Snow, Conrad Edwin, 1889-1975
Dates
- Existence: 1889 - 1975
Biography
Conrad E. Snow was born in Haverhill, NH, on August 6, 1889. He received degrees from both Dartmouth College in 1912 and Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar in 1915 and 1929. He also attended Harvard University Law School, where he edited the Harvard Law Review, graduating in 1917. Upon graduating from Harvard Law, Snow went on to serve in World War I as an artillery captain in France. In 1919, he established his law practice in Rochester, NH, and would eventually go on to serve two years in the New Hampshire state legislature. Snow also held the position of secretary-treasurer of the state bar association from 1932-1942 and headed the New Hampshire state council of Boy Scouts from 1934-1937. In 1940, he was summoned to Washington D.C. as the director of the legal division of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer and served as a brigadier general during World War II. In 1945, he was assigned to the staff of the Under Secretary of War and in 1946, joined the State Department as an assistant legal advisor. He would go on to serve as chairman of the State Department’s Loyalty Security Board from its inception in 1947 to its disestablishment in 1956. As head of this board during the early 1950's and height of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy’s charges of “Communist infiltration” in the State Department, Snow came forward and vigorously defended both the department and the actions of the review board. In 1950, Snow served on a U.S. clemency board for German war criminals and as a chairman of a similar board for Japanese war criminals. He was, furthermore, sent, in 1951, to London to negotiate the status of forces agreement for American troops in other countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Association. Upon leaving the State Department in 1956, Snow became counsel to a law firm in Laconia, NH, and served in the New Hampshire Legislature from 1959 to 1960. He died on December 22, 1975, in Gilmanton Iron Works, NH.
Found in 1 Collection or Record:
Conrad Snow papers
The papers of Conrad E. Snow consist of personal and professional correspondence, diaries, drawings, essays, poetry, newspapers clippings, and other documents related to his academic life at Dartmouth College, Harvard Law School and his military service during World War I and II. Correspondence, writings and brochures related to his mother, Norma Currier Snow, are also included. Of note are diaries, correspondence, and a scrapbook with Snow’s military orders from World War I.