Edwin M. Meese III

ME784-7, Edwin Meese, Counsellor to the President, 1981-85. Attorney General, 1985-88. Michael Evans Portrait Project Photograph Collection; Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, CA.

Edwin M. Meese IIIUnited States Attorney General (1985-1988); Counsellor to the President (1981-1985)

Edwin Meese (b. 1931), also known as Edmund Meese, was born in Oakland, California. He served as the seventy-fifth Attorney General of the United States from 1985 to 1988. In 1953, Meese graduated from Yale University, and holds a law degree from the University of California. He worked as assistant district attorney of Alameda County, California before joining Governor Ronald Reagan's staff in 1967. Meese was legal affairs secretary from 1967 to o 1968 and as executive assistant and chief of staff to Governor Reagan from 1969 to 1974.

From January 1975 to May 1976, Meese was vice president for administration of Rohr Industries in Chula Vista, California. He left Rohr to enter private law practice in San Diego, California. He served as a professor of law at the University of San Diego from 1977 to 1981, and also was director of the Center for Criminal Justice Policy and Management.