Stanford Report, July 9, 2003
Najeeb
Halaby, longtime university supporter and volunteer, dies at 87 BY JOHN SANFORD
Onetime airline executive and Stanford trustee Najeeb E. Halaby, who
managed successful careers in business, law and government but was perhaps
best known as the father of Jordan's Queen Noor, died July 2, 2003, at
his home in McLean, Va. He was 87.
The cause was congestive heart failure.
Halaby was a longtime supporter of Stanford and held several volunteer
positions at the university, most notably as a member of the Board of
Trustees from 1971 to 1974 and of the visitors board of the Institute
for International Studies (IIS) from 1994 to 2003. (The visitors board
is an advisory council of university alumni and friends.) He also was
a founding member of the Stanford in Washington Advisory Council.
IIS Director David Holloway, the Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International
History, remembers Halaby as a pragmatist with a good sense of humor.
With his business experience and close ties to the Middle East, the institute
was fortunate to have him as a member of the visitors board, Holloway
said.
"One of the things he really pressed us to do was to develop our work
on the Islamic world, and I have to say that we didn't respond as well
as we might have done," Holloway added. "And everyone is clear now that
that was a mistake."
Born Nov. 19, 1915, in Dallas, Jeeb, as he was known, had parents from
remarkably different backgrounds: His Lebanese-Syrian father was a naturalized
U.S. citizen; his mother was the daughter of a Confederate soldier from
Tennessee. Halaby graduated from Stanford in 1937 with a bachelor's degree
in political science. He was a member of the varsity golf team and Sword
and Sandals, a men's honorary dramatic organization. He went on to earn
a law degree from Yale in 1940.
As a Navy test pilot during World War II, Halaby flew the first operational
American jet plane and, in 1945, became the first person to make a nonstop,
transcontinental jet flight. In 1948, he was made foreign affairs adviser
to then-Secretary of Defense James Forrestal, and later served as deputy
assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs under
President Eisenhower.
For several years Halaby directed his own law firm, N. E. Halaby and
Associates, and served as president of a Los Angeles-based venture capital
company. In 1961, President John Kennedy appointed him head of the Federal
Aviation Agency (which later became the Federal Aviation Administration),
where he was known as a hands-on administrator and for his efforts to
establish stringent safety regulations. He also was known as a staunch
supporter of equal opportunity for minorities.
In 1965 he joined Pan American World Airways, where he served as director
and senior vice president until 1968, the year he was elected president.
He was elected chief executive officer in 1969 and chairman the following
year. His tenure ended somewhat tumultuously, however, when he was forced
to resign by the company's board of directors, which blamed him for the
airline's deepening financial problems. (In fact, his leadership of Pan
Am coincided with a nationwide recession and increased competition among
airlines.)
After leaving, he helped to create an air academy to train aviation-industry
workers across the Arab world. In 1978, his daughter Lisa Halaby married
King Hussein of Jordan.
Halaby also served as chairman of the American University in Beirut
and on the boards of many other organizations, including the King Hussein
Foundation, the Jordan Society, the Hariri Foundation, the Aspen Institute
of Humanistic Studies and the Eleanor Roosevelt Cancer Research Institute.
In addition to Queen Noor, he is survived by his wife of six years,
Libby Cater Halaby; another daughter, Alexa Halaby; and a son, Christian
Halaby.
1937 alumnus was trustee and member of IIS visitors
board who advocated for better understanding of Islamic world
Najeeb E. Halaby