Hill Counsel, Law Professor Arthur John Keeffe, 86, Dies
Arthur John Keeffe, 86, a professor emeritus at Catholic University law school who worked on several committees on Capitol Hill and contributed frequently to professional journals, died of congestive heart failure Oct. 2 at Georgetown University Hospital.</br></br>While serving as counsel to Rep. Wright Patman (D-Tex.), chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee, Mr. Keeffe wrote a widely noted history of the Federal Reserve System. In 1955, he served as counsel to a Senate subcommittee under Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-Tenn.) that investigated the Dixon-Yates scandal, an issue in the 1954 congressional elections. It involved conflicts of interest in the award of a contract to build a power plant at West Memphis, Ark., that would have fed into the Tennessee Valley Authority system.</br></br>Mr. Keeffe also was counsel to a Senate committee that investigated campaign financing in the 1952 presidential election. In the aftermath of World War II, he was president of a board that reviewed all general courts-martial in the naval service.</br></br>From 1952 to 1983, Mr. Keeffe wrote a regular column reviewing current legal literature for the American Bar Association Journal, and he contributed to numerous other legal publications.</br></br>A resident of Washington since joining the law faculty at Catholic University in 1955, Mr. Keeffe was born in Elmira, N.Y. He received undergraduate and law degrees from Cornell University. He practiced law in New York City and then taught law at Cornell. Except for World War II, when he again practiced in New York City, he remained at Cornell until he moved to Washington.