Henry Varnum Poor

Henry Varnum Poor (January 7, 1914 - October 10, 1972) was an American intelligence officer and politician who became associate dean of the Yale Law School.

Education and wartime service Born on January 7, 1914, in New York, He attended the Buckley School in New York and the Noble and Greenough School in Dedham, Massachusetts, and received his undergraduate education from Harvard University, graduating in 1936. and became Editorial Chairman of The Harvard Crimson. He then worked as vice consul for the United States in Montreal, Quebec, Canada and Johannesburg, South Africa,

He completed a law degree at Yale University in 1942. During World War II he worked with United States Naval Intelligence, He was stationed with the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing on Bougainville Island in the Solomon Islands in 1944 and returned to Washington in 1945 to work in the Office of Naval Intelligence there before being released from duty in 1946. Poor became the Republican Nominee for New York's 20th congressional district in the 1950 United States House of Representatives elections, losing the race to Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr. He then worked for a time as an executive with the Central Intelligence Agency.

Academic career He was an associate dean of the Yale Law School for eight years, and edited the book You and the Law: A Practical Guide to Everyday Law and How It Affects You and Your Family (Reader's Digest, 1971).

He left Yale and became vice president of the National Strategy Information Center in 1971. He was also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Personal life Poor married his first wife, the former Elizabeth Durham, in 1936. She died in 1946 and he later married Elizabeth Neal. Poor had five children.

He died on October 10, 1972.