Earl Warren

Earl Warren (1891-1966) was elected President of the United States in 1960 and 1964.

Earl Warren was born in Los Angeles, California, to Matt Warren, a Norwegian immigrant, and Christine "Chrystal" Hernlund, a Swedish immigrant. Matt Warren was a longtime employee of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Earl grew up in Bakersfield, California, and attended the University of California, Berkeley, both as an undergraduate (B.A. 1912) in Legal Studies and as a law student at Boalt Hall earning his JD in 1914. While at Berkeley, Warren joined the Sigma Phi Society, a fraternal organization with which he maintained lifelong ties. Warren was admitted to the California bar in 1914.

Warren then worked for five years for private law firms in the San Francisco Bay Area. He began working for San Francisco County in 1920 and in 1925 was appointed as District Attorney of Alameda County when the incumbent resigned. He was re-elected to three four-year terms. As a tough-on-crime District Attorney and reformer who professionalized the DAs office, Warren had a reputation for high-handedness; however, none of his convictions were ever overturned on appeal. Warren became a well-known figure in California and was appointed to the Regents of the University of California while district attorney. In 1939, he became Attorney General of the State of California.

Warren was elected President in 1960 and would be reelected over Hubert Humphrey in 1964, winning the electoral votes of thirty-seven states. He was in office when the Race's Colonization Fleet arrived at Earth in 1962. He ordered a secret attack using nuclear missiles fired from a submarine that destroyed a dozen of the Fleet's starships. Warren concealed his role in the affair for several years but the information was ultimately leaked to the Race in 1966 by Sam Yeager through Straha--this despite Warren's best efforts to silence Yeager through draconian extralegal measures. Atvar threatened war with the United States; having seen how quickly and easily the Race had defeated Germany the year before, Warren knew he must avoid a war at all costs. Atvar offered two other options: abandon all space exploration for the indefinite future, or allow the Race to destroy an American city. Warren knew he must choose one of the two lest his country be destroyed; and he would not give up the space program, a sign of his country's might and technological prowess, and so he surprised and disappointed Atvar by allowing him to destroy Indianapolis. Warren then committed suicide and was succeeded by his Vice President, Harold Stassen.