No American writer of distinction has ever played as important a roll in public service as Archibald MacLeish. After a distinguished early career in law, journalism, and literature, the eminent poet became the Librarian of Congress in 1939. A member of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "Brain Trust," MacLeish went on to head the World War II defense information bureau, the Office of Facts and Figures, as well as the Committee on War Information and the Office of Censorship.

MacLeish also joined a secret government committee in 1943 to plan the postwar world and helped draft the design for the United Nations. Appointed assistant secretary of state for cultural and public affairs in 1944, he led the publicity effort to sell the American electorate on the U.N. He also wrote a substantial portion of the organization's charter and headed the first US. delegation to UNESCO. Meanwhile he also wrote speeches for FDR, including most of the 1941 inaugural address, and gave regular radio broadcasts championing administration policies. It was no wonder that his Library of Congress associates referred to him as Roosevelt's "Minister of Culture."

MacLeish was also a prolific writer who published over 70 books in both prose and verse. There were few literary honors he did not receive. He not only won three Pulitzer Prizes (two in poetry and one in drama), but also a Broadway Tony (for his verse play "J. B.") and even an Academy Award (for his documentary, "The Eleanor Roosevelt Story"). A driven man, he wrote too much and most of that -for obvious reasons - too quickly.

Today his prose seems badly dated and much of the verse and drama feels preachy and prolix. But a dozen or so of his poems - like "Ars Poetica" and "You, Andrew Marvell" remain among the splendors of 20th-century American literature. Few poets of his generation equaled that legacy.