DAVID BUSBY Esq.

BUSBY David Busby, Esq. Passed away on December 21, 2016. He was born January 30, 1926 in Ada, Oklahoma. The son of Judge Orel and Hope Busby of Ada, Oklahoma, he graduated from Culver Military Academy in 1944, Yale University in 1948, and the University of Oklahoma School of Law in 1951. During World War II, he was on active duty from 1944 to 1946 in the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps in Mississippi College and Duke University. While in law school, he was elected president of the League of Young Democrats of Oklahoma and later became a local campaign manager in the successful U.S. Senate race of A.S. "Mike" Monroney. After practicing law and serving as City Judge in his birthplace, Ada, Oklahoma, he was appointed Counsel to Senator Monroney's Subcommittee on Automobile Marketing Practices, which was charged in 1955 with the first ever Congressional investigation of the automobile industry. Busby drafted and helped enact the legislation requiring The "Monroney Label" on the windows of new vehicles to disclose the "Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price" and other information to the public. In 1958, Busby went to New York City to become a founding partner of Hays and Busby, which became Busby, Rivkin, Sherman, Levy, and Rehm, with offices in New York, Washington and Paris. He specialized in customs laws, representing Continental, Kerr-McGee, Phillips, Pure, Mobil and other major oil companies. He helped form and represented an association of automobile importers from England, Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, Russia, Japan, and South Korea -- which were beginning to make inroads in the U.S. market. Returning to Washington, he was appointed by President Johnson to the National Motor Vehicle Safety Advisory Committee. In 1978 he was lead defense counsel in the largest case ever brought at the U.S. International Trade Commission, an action brought by Ford Motor Company and the United Auto Workers to restrict importation of foreign-made cars into the United States. Always on the side of expanding international trade, Busby represented French perfume makers, the South African steel industry, computer importers and other controversial clients. He served as chairman of the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Customs Law and on the Boards of Directors of the Customs and International Trade Bar Association and the Association of the Bar of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. He returned to Washington in 1966 and, in 1985, the firm merged with the Minneapolis-based firm of Dorsey & Whitney. After retiring from active practice in 1994, he was sent at various times by the U.S. Department of Commerce, the World Bank, and the Soros Foundation to Russia, Ukraine, Uganda, Moldova, and Latvia to consult on their Customs laws and teach World Trade Organization law and procedure. Secretary of State Albright appointed him to the Review Assessment Board for the 1998 terrorist bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania. He was admitted to practice law before the U.S. Supreme Court, and before federal and state courts in The District of Columbia, New York, and Oklahoma. An active Episcopalian, Busby served on the Building and Finance Committees of the Washington National Cathedral and on its governing body, The Chapter. He helped found the National Cathedral Peace Commission, which annually conferred a "Peacemakers Award" to international peacemakers, including Bishop Tutu. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Washington Legal Aid Society. Busby devoted much of his retirement to finding a treatment and cure of Fragile X, the most common cause of inherited intellectual disabilities, with which his sons are affected. He served as pro bono counsel to the FRAXA Research Foundation. With his wife, Mary Beth, he lobbied the congress to increase research funding for Fragile X research. He is survived by his wife of 54 years, Mary Beth Baker; his children, Hope Busby Burleigh of Los Angeles, California, Alison Sears Vareika of Newport, Rhode Island, Robert David Busby, Jr. of Ada, Oklahoma, and John Orel Busby of Annandale, Virginia. Busby is also survived by his five grandchildren, Timothy Michael McGeary, Patrick Busby Burleigh, Nicholas Busby Burleigh, William Christian Vareika, Hope Emily Anne Vareika, and one great grandchild, Ned Nicholas Burleigh. Services will be held at Bethlehem Chapel Washington National Cathedral at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, December 28, 2016. Donations in his memory should be made to Washington National Cathedral, Massachusetts and Wisconsin Avenues NW, Washington, D.C. 20016 or FRAXA Research Foundation, 10 Prince Place, Newburyport, Massachusetts 01950.Massachusetts 01950.