Burton J. Lee III

Burton James Lee III (March 28, 1930 – November 25, 2016) was a physician and oncologist who is best known for having been Physician to the President under President George H. W. Bush and (briefly) Bill Clinton. He also served on the President's Commission on the HIV Epidemic. Early life and education Burton James Lee III was born on March 28, 1930, in Manhattan, New York City, New York, to Burton J. Lee II and his wife, the former Rosamond Saltonstall Auchincloss. He and his twin sister, Rosamond Saltonstall Lee, were the eldest of four children born to the couple. His other siblings were Susannah (born 1932) and Mary Josephine (born 1937). His parents, who wed in New York City on June 20, 1929, were important members of high society. His father was a banker, and his mother a member of one of the most prominent families of New England. His paternal grandfather, Burton James Lee, had been an oncologist and the first clinical director at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center after its relocation. His childhood idol was his maternal grandfather, Charles Auchincloss. As a youth, Lee attended the Buckley School on New York City's Upper East Side, and then graduated from Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. He entered Yale University, where he received his bachelor's degree in 1952. While at Yale, he became close friends with Jonathan Bush, George H. W. Bush's younger brother, and with Nicholas F. Brady, the future Secretary of the Treasury under George H. W. Bush. This led to a close friendship with George H. W. Bush. He received his M.D. from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1956. Lee interned at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. About 1945 or 1946, Rosamond and Burton Lee, Jr. divorced. Rosamond married Thomas Campbell Plowden-Wardlaw, a prominent New York attorney, on July 2, 1954, and died on November 4, 1971.