Military service Reid enlisted as a private in the
United States Army in 1943 and was discharged as a
first lieutenant in 1946. He later served as a
captain in the
United States Army Reserve. From 1956 until 1959, Reid was a director of the
Panama Canal Company.
Political career Ambassador to Israel From 1959 to 1961, Reid was the
United States Ambassador to Israel. In this role, he interacted with Foreign Minister
Golda Meir, who expressed Israel's opposition to a proposal to revive the
Palestine Conciliation Commission in an attempt to solve the Arab refugee problem. Following his return to the United States, he became a director of the
Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company in 1961.
United States Congress In 1962, Reid was elected to the
Eighty-eighth Congress as a
Republican. He was on the liberal fringe of the
GOP and faced repeated challenges in primaries. In 1965, Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. wrote to Rep. Reid thanking him for coming to Alabama and visiting
Selma. King wrote that "Your very presence there has had an electric effect upon the voteless and beleaguered Negro citizens of this city, county, state and nation." One of the most liberal Republicans in the
House of Representatives, Reid voted in favor of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964, the
Voting Rights Act of 1965, the
Civil Rights Act of 1968, the
Medicare program for the elderly, the
Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968, and was one of two Republican co-sponsors of the Kennedy-Griffiths universal healthcare bill in the House of Representatives in 1971, the other being
Charles Adams Mosher of Ohio. On March 22, 1972, he
switched parties and joined the
Democratic Party. Reid said that he could not support
Richard Nixon for re-election and the Republican Party had "moved to the right" and was "not showing the compassion and sensitivity to meet the problems of the average American." After switching parties he turned back a Republican challenge in
1972. In 1974, Reid declined to seek re-election to the House. While in Congress, Reid sponsored 85 pieces of legislation and co-sponsored 99 pieces of legislation.
Later career In
1974, he briefly ran for
Governor of New York, dropping out of the race before the election. He later served in the administration of Democratic governor
Hugh Carey as Commissioner of
Environmental Conservation and was the unsuccessful Democratic nominee for the post of
Westchester County Executive in 1983. His papers are held with the Manuscripts and Archives at the
Sterling Memorial Library at
Yale University in
New Haven, Connecticut. ==Personal life==