John “Jack” Giffen Weinmann, a well-known New Orleans attorney and civic leader who served as the U.S. ambassador to Finland under George H.W. Bush, died Thursday. He was 87.
Weinmann practiced law for 28 years at the firm of Phelps Dunbar and was general counsel for the Times-Picayune Publishing Corp. and Rathborne Land Company.
He served as U.S. Ambassador to Finland from 1989 to 1991 and as Chief of Protocol of the White House from 1991 to 1993.
He was appointed to both diplomatic roles by President George H.W. Bush. In 1988, he was the Bush campaign's Louisiana finance chairman and a member of its national finance committee.
His other diplomatic activities include service as United States Commissioner General for the 1984 Louisiana World Exposition (the World's Fair) and Chief Delegate of the United States to the Bureau of International Expositions in Paris.
In his diplomatic roles, Weinmann spent three and a half years greeting heads of state in Washington and Helsinki, including Menachem Begin, John Major and Boris Yeltsin. He told The Times-Picayune how he helped organize a 1990 summit in Helsinki for President Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
In 1996, the New Orleans native reigned as Rex, King of Carnival.
"I grew up watching Rex go by and thinking how wonderful it must be to be Rex," he told The Times-Picayune at the time. "It was simply a grand parade."
Though he had gone to Carnival parades all his life, he admitted to being a little nervous about his role.
"But I won't be nearly as nervous as the morning I was sworn in as chief of protocol of the White House at 10 a.m. and had to greet President Havel of Czechoslovakia at 2 that afternoon," he told writer John Pope. "I knew nothing about the job - I mean, NOTHING. I was very nervous then; this will be a piece of cake."
Weinmann was also a Rex duke in 1950, the year the Duke and Duchess of Windsor visited New Orleans, reviewed the Rex parade and created a stir by bowing to pretend royalty at the Rex Ball and Meeting of the Courts that night.
Weinmann, a former chair of the Tulane University board of administrators and longtime Tulane supporter and campus leader, earned his undergraduate and law degrees from Tulane. Weinmann Hall, the Tulane Law School building, is named in his honor. He was named Outstanding Law Alumnus in 1985 and Outstanding Alumnus of the Class of 1950 during their Golden Anniversary in 2000. He received Tulane’s Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2002.
Weinmann’s family, which includes five children and several grandchildren, have also been longtime supporters of Metairie Park Country Day School.
Weinmann formerly served as president and director of Waverly Oil Company, chairman of the board and director of Eason Oil Company, director of the American Life Insurance Company of New York, director of the Allied Investment Corporation, member of the Metropolitan Area Committee and the Council for a Better Louisiana.
Funeral arrangements have not been announced.
