Biography
Posvar was born September 14, 1925 in Topeka, Kansas. He attended West Point, graduated first in his class in 1946, and after graduation he joined the U.S. Army Air Corps, which later became the U.S. Air Force. He was the first Air Force officer to receive a Rhodes Scholarship, earning both a bachelor's and master's at Oxford University. At Harvard University he earned a master's in public administration and a Ph.D. in political science. Posvar achieved the Air Force rank of brigadier general.
On July 31, 1991 Wesley W. Posvar officially retired from his post as chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh after 24 years. Posvar was married to Mildred Miller, New York Metropolitan Opera star and recital mezzo-soprano, with whom he had three children, Wesley, Marina and Lisa. Posvar died of a heart attack on July 27, 2001. He was buried with full military honors at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
Read more about this topic: Wesley Posvar
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“In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which is but materials to serve for a mythology.”
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