Caspar Weinberger - Early Life

Early Life

Weinberger was born in San Francisco, California, the younger of two sons of Herman Weinberger, a Colorado-born lawyer. His mother, the former Cerise Carpenter Hampson, was an accomplished violinist whose parents were immigrants from England. Weinberger was named "Caspar" for a friend of his mother's; his father began calling him "Cap", a nickname that stuck into adulthood.

Weinberger was a first cousin of the nationally-broadcast radio personality Don McNeill of Don McNeill's Breakfast Club; their mothers were sisters-in-law. Caspar Weinberger's father Herman was the younger brother of Luella Weinberger McNeill, mother of Don McNeill. The 1910 Census shows Herman and Luella living in the household of Nathan Weinberger, the grandfather of Caspar Weinberger. Weinberger was a sickly child and required close nurturing from his mother; in time, he overcame his poor health and shyness. He attended San Francisco Polytechnic High School.

Weinberger's paternal grandparents had left Judaism because of a dispute at a Bohemian synagogue. He was reared in a home with no denominational ties, though with a general Christian orientation. In time he became an active Episcopalian and often expressed his faith in God. When he enrolled at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Mrs. Weinberger rented an apartment nearby for the first semester that Weinberger and his older brother, Peter, attended Harvard. She then returned to her husband in San Francisco. Weinberger received his Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, in 1938 and a Juris Doctor degree in 1941, both from Harvard. He edited the Harvard student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, and recalls in his memoirs entitled In the Arena: A Memoir of the 20th Century two specific interviews of which he was most pleased: one with the highly decorated soldier Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., and another with Alabama-born actress Tallulah Bankhead.

He entered the United States Army as a private in 1941, was commissioned as a second lieutenant at the United States Army Officer Candidate School in Fort Benning, Georgia, and served with the 41st Infantry Division in the Pacific. At the end of the war he was a captain on General Douglas MacArthur's intelligence staff. Early in life, he developed an interest in politics and history, and, during the war years, a special admiration for Winston Churchill, whom he would later cite as an important influence in his life. From 1945-1947, Weinberger worked as a law clerk for a federal judge before joining a San Francisco law firm.