Lansing Lamont

Lamont, Lansing

Lansing Lamont died on September 3, 2013 in New York City. He was the beloved husband for 59 years of Ada Jung Lamont, formerly of Sheboygan, and was the son-in-law of Wesley W. Jung (deceased). Mr. Lamont was most recently in Wisconsin for the dedication of the new Wesley W. Jung Carriage Museum at Wade House in Greenbush in June.

Mr. Lamont was a journalist, author, public affairs executive and trustee.

He was a national political correspondent for TIME Magazine from 1961 to 1968. Based in Washington, he covered Congress and the political parties and leaders of that era. He helped report more than fifteen TIME cover stories including the astronauts' early space shots; the assassinations of President Kennedy and his brother Robert; and the party conventions and Presidential campaigns of 1964 and 1968.

Mr. Lamont was the author of Day of Trinity, the acclaimed account of the world's first atomic bomb test at Alamagordo, New Mexico. The book, published by Atheneum in 1965, contained the first illustration of the bomb's interior. It became an international best-seller.

In a front page review in the New York Times Book Review section, William L. Laurence wrote that Day of Trinity (the test was code-named Trinity) was "a remarkable achievement" for which "the contemporary world, as well as the historians of the future, are, and will be, deeply indebted to Mr. Lamont."

The Saturday Review of Literature observed that Mr. Lamont's story of the birth of the nuclear age "should be required reading, at regular intervals, throughout the civilized world."

Mr. Lamont was a foreign correspondent for TIME in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He served as deputy chief of TIME's London bureau and as chief Canada correspondent and Ottawa bureau chief. He was the magazine's United Nations bureau chief before leaving to write another book, Campus Shock (Dutton), that was published in 1979. Its theme, the dark side of college life at America's most prestigious campuses, drew critical attention.

Mr. Lamont co-edited two other books, one of them with his uncle, Corliss Lamont. His third book, Breakup: The Coming End of Canada and the Stakes for America (W.W. Norton, 1994), was hailed by the New York Times reviewer as "the best book about Canada by an American journalist I have ever read." The Times cited it as one of the most notable books of the year.

In 1982 Mr. Lamont organized the first national forum on Canadian-American issues. Throughout the eighties he served as its director. The forum, based in New York City at the Americas Society, attracted leaders in government, the arts and business from both countries.

Mr. Lamont was a frequent contributor to the New York Times op-ed page as well as other publications. He was a guest lecturer and panelist on U.S. and Canadian radio and Television.

Born on March 13, 1930, in New York and raised in Manhattan, Mr. Lamont was a graduate of Milton Academy, Harvard College, and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. After college he served three and a half years in the U.S. Army infantry.

Mr. Lamont was Chairman of the American Trust for the British Library. He was a longtime trustee of the American Museum of Natural History, New York, and of Milton Academy, Milton, MA. An amateur jazz pianist, he was also on the board of the National Institute for Music Theatre and Opera.

He was a William Cullen Bryant Fellow of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a former director of the Harvard Alumni Association.

Mr. Lamont was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Century Association and the Harvard Club of New York City. He was a past member of the White House Correspondents Association in Washington.

A congenial man with a wide range of friends, Mr. Lamont was an avid skier, sailor and birder. He and his wife traveled widely and he published several booklets and magazine articles on their experiences in China, the Soviet Union and the Middle East.

Mr. Lamont maintained homes in Manhattan; North Haven, Maine; and Wilton, Connecticut. Besides his wife Ada, formerly of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, he leaves four children, Douglas R. Lamont, of Dover, Massachusetts; Elisabeth L. Wolcott, of Hamilton, Massachusetts; Virginia L. Cazedessus, of Lake Arenal, Costa Rica; and Thomas S. Lamont II, of Groton, Massachusetts; a brother, Edward M. Lamont, of Syosset, New York; a sister, Elinor L. Hallowell, of Tucson, Arizona; and 9 grandsons and 3 granddaughters.