Philip Merrill: Advisor, Benefactor, Friend

In Memoriam

This past summer SAIS lost a great friend, Philip Merrill, long a generous benefactor, and most recently the donor, together with his wife Ellie and the support of their children Douglas, Cathy and Nancy, of the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies at SAIS.

Figure 1.

Philip Merrill with the 2005-2006 Merrill Scholars

His was a varied career. He learned the sea the hard way, in the merchant marine, and journalism by starting at the bottom, too; he attended Cornell where he claims to have pulled off the greatest practical joke in the history of the university (alas, I never learned what it was); he served in the Army and in the foreign service; he built a fortune in publishing, including the indispensable inside-the-Beltway magazine The Washingtonian as well as local newspapers in his own Annapolis; he served his country as assistant secretary general of NATO and as chairman of the Export-Import Bank, as well as on a slew of high-level advisory panels and boards; he served his community by putting his passion and his money into rescuing Chesapeake Bay from pollution. He loved skiing and above all sailing—he would hold you in conversation in his living room overlooking the Bay, but if an elegant boat drifted across the horizon you lost him, although he made up for it the next moment. "The life of the idle rich isn't appealing" he once remarked, and being idle is something Phil could not, by temperament do—but, of course, sailing in the South Seas isn't idleness, and he knew, wisely, how to combine enormously hard work with an enormously good time doing what he loved best. "Independence," he said, "was my goal; wealth was accidental."

Phil was one of the most wonderful men I have ever met. Here was a diplomat who could be disconcertingly direct—and loud. I always had trouble imagining Phil in the hushed corridors of the chanceries of the Old World, although he surely flourished there. He was a newspaper owner who relished a great story even if it made powerful friends squirm, a conservative who was an ardent environmentalist, a public servant who accepted high rank without being seduced by it, a patriot who loved his country dearly while cataloguing its faults unsparingly. It is a small but telling tale that he, a connoisseur of the chocolate chip cookie, convoked an annual survey of that treat by The Washingtonian. One year, at the very bottom of the standings, delivered with scorn and contumely, were the products of Giant supermarkets—one of his largest advertisers, as it happened, and owned by a close friend to boot. Phil winced and, as always happened when a friend was being pummeled by one of his publications, took the heat with a rueful but utterly sincere defense of freedom of the press.

Phil was a man not of contradictions, but rather of terrific harmonies, a balance captured in his favorite nautical saying, "a hand for the ship, a hand for yourself," which captured his philosophy of how one should shape a career. He could argue vehemently and laugh uproariously; he let you know his opinions in no uncertain terms, but was one of the best listeners I have ever met. Few men have been so loved by friends and family, employees and associates, without receiving court, or indeed signaling any desire for deference. Indeed, those close to him recollected as a kind of badge of honor their memories of getting "the full Phil." Once, after a gloomy day some years ago I wallowed at how the country was in awful shape—the politicians fools, the economy on crumbling foundations, our foreign policy headed for the rocks. The next moment there was a finger prodding me—hard—in the chest, punctuating an outraged lecture that began, "Don't you, don't you, don't you EVER sell the United States short!" What followed was the most marvelous tribute to American freedom, creativity and dynamism I ever hope to...