GARDNER, John William

(b. 8 October 1912 in Los Angeles, California; d. 16 February 2002 in Stanford, California), noted educator and public official during the 1960s who served as the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and was best known as the founder of the public interest group Common Cause.

Gardner was the younger of two sons of William Frederick and Marie Flora (Glover) Gardner. Both of his parents were real-estate brokers. His father died when he was one, and Gardner was raised by his mother, who became his intellectual and moral compass and who taught him the value of literature and travel. Gardner married Aida Marroquin on 18 August 1934; they had two daughters. He attended Stanford University in California, receiving a B.A. in psychology in 1935 and an M.A. in psychology in 1936. While at Stanford, Gardner competed on the school's swim team, breaking several Pacific Coast Conference records. He completed his doctoral studies in psychology at the University of California at Berkeley, where he received his Ph.D. in 1938. He began his academic career at Connecticut College for Women in New London as an instructor in psychology from 1938 to 1940. Gardner continued his teaching at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, as an assistant professor of psychology from 1940 to 1942.

Gardner left academia in 1942 to serve in World War II, during which he monitored Axis radio propaganda and then moved to the Office of Strategic Services (the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency), where he contributed to the development of personnel assessment tests. He was discharged in 1946 with the rank of captain. World War II shaped Gardner's interest in world affairs and his desire to live a life of action. In 1946 he joined the Carnegie Corporation of New York City, where he later served as an executive associate (1947–1949), vice president (1949–1955), and president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (1955–1965). Gardner played a decisive role in awarding Carnegie grants to support the development of the Russian Research Center and the Cognitive Studies Center at Harvard University. He was also a frequent consultant to federal agencies.

Gardner produced his best-known book in 1961; Excellence: Can We Be Equal and Excellent Too? discusses the dilemma of encouraging merit in a democracy and urges commitment to higher standards in education. Gardner observed, "We don't even know what skills may be needed in the years ahead. That is why we must train our young people in the fundamental fields of knowledge, and equip them to understand and cope with change. That is why we must give them the critical qualities of mind and durable qualities of character that will serve them in circumstances we cannot now even predict." The book's message caught the attention of President John F. Kennedy, and in 1961 Gardner edited a collection of the president's speeches and position papers, To Turn the Tide (1962).

In 1964 Gardner published Self-Renewal: The Individual and the Innovative Society, which argues that both personal and societal changes are great sources of renewal and should be embraced. That same year Gardner was appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson to chair a White House task force on education. The panel concluded that the federal government should equalize education by funding public schools and encourage qualitative improvements and innovations in local communities. Many of the panel's recommendations were enacted in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. As a result of this work, Gardner received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964.

Gardner served as the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) from 1965 to 1968. As the leader of a federal agency with a multibillion-dollar budget and more than 100,000 employees, he consolidated several of HEW's social rehabilitation agencies and administered many of Johnson's newly enacted Great Society programs, which were meant to end poverty, promote equality, improve education, rejuvenate cities, and protect the environment. Gardner played a large role in enforcing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, making sure that federal funds were not distributed in a discriminatory way. He undertook the giant task of launching the Medicare program, which brought quality health care to senior citizens. According to one estimate, 195 million Americans were affected by the programs supervised by Gardner. He resigned as the secretary of HEW in 1968, in opposition to Johnson's policies regarding the Vietnam War.

A few weeks after leaving this position, Gardner became the chair and chief executive officer of the Urban Coalition, positions he held from 1968 to 1970. The coalition lobbied to halt the deterioration of inner cities by tackling the problems of race and poverty that underlay the nationwide riots of 1968. New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller asked Gardner to fill Robert Kennedy's seat in Congress after the New York senator was assassinated in 1968, but Gardner turned down the job. In 1970 he launched Common Cause, a public interest group concerned with a wide range of issues, including the Vietnam War, social welfare, and environmentalism. As the chair of Common Cause he was known for supporting election-law reform and the public financing of presidential elections. Due to his great leadership in education during the 1960s, Gardner was later selected to serve on many government, academic, and private boards and commissions. He died at age eighty-nine of complications from prostate cancer and is buried in Palo Alto, California.

Gardner was prominent as an educator and social activist who exerted tremendous influence on American education, urban development, and civil rights during the 1960s. His leadership in the Carnegie Corporation led to the funding of many seminal projects in education.

No biography of Gardner exists. His own books provide a perspective on his beliefs and approach to public service. They include Excellence: Can We Be Equal and Excellent Too? (1961); Self-Renewal: The Individual and the Innovative Society (1964); No Easy Victories (1968); The Recovery of Confidence (1970); In Common Cause (1972); Morale (1978); with Andrew McFarland, Common Cause: Lobbying in the Public Interest (1984); and On Leadership (1990). Obituaries are in the New York Times (18 Feb. 2002), and the Stanford Business School News (Mar. 2002).

Reed B. Markham