H. Rex Lee

Hyrum Rex Lee (April 8, 1910 – July 26, 2001) was an American government employee and diplomat who was the last unelected governor of American Samoa. Lee served as governor from 1961 to 1967, and again briefly from 1977 to 1978. Governor Lee's administration from 1961 to 1967 saw the establishment of schools, a new airport, roads, Rainmaker Hotel, an educational television system, new harbor facilities, and a fisheries cannery. Tourism boomed and there was an increasing acceptance of Western institutions, lifestyles, and ideas. Many residents relocated to California and Hawai'i or joined the U.S. Armed Forces.

Born in Rigby, Idaho, Lee studied agricultural science before working as an economist with the Resettlement Administration. He was then employed by the War Relocation Authority and became assistant chief of the Office of Territories in 1946, until 1950. That year he was appointed as associate (later becoming deputy) commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, where he was noted for his skills as a congressional liaison. In 1961, he was appointed as Governor of American Samoa as part of the incoming Kennedy administration, serving until 1967.

Lee was seen as a successful administrator by both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Following his service in American Samoa, he was appointed to the Federal Communications Commission, where he promoted educational television. He retired in 1973, continuing to promote educational television, but served another term as Governor of American Samoa until the first-ever elected governor assumed office in January 1978.

Lee was born in Rigby on April 8, 1910. His parents had lived in Rigby for their whole lives. He attended the public schools of Jefferson County, Idaho, before studying a bachelor's degree in agricultural science at the University of Idaho, graduating in 1936. In 1964, the university gave him an honorary law degree.

Lee's entered public service after finishing his degree, and from June 1936 to July 1937, he worked as an economist with the United States Department of Agriculture's Resettlement Administration in Moscow, Idaho. He then joined the University of Idaho Extension Service and served a year as a county assistant agent in Pocatello. From November 1938 to June 1946, he worked in the War Relocation Authority that oversaw the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Many Japanese Americans lived on the West Coast at this time. His service included overseeing the Division of Relocation and Evacuee Property. As the internment period began to end in 1945, Lee's job was largely to find temporary housing for Japanese Americans, as many of the soldiers' families had moved to California towards the end of the war, resulting in a lack of available accommodation.

In 1946, Lee transferred to the United States Department of the Interior as assistant chief of the Office of Territories. During his time there, he played a key role in arranging the transfer of American Samoa from Navy to civilian jurisdiction. Lee was a consultant on loan to the United Nations in 1949, and spent three months travelling in the Near East conferring with Arab and Israeli leaders to assist refugees displaced by the Arab–Israeli conflict. Dillon S. Myer, the former director of the War Relocation Authority, had been placed in charge of the Arab Refugee program, and had asked that Lee was assigned to assist him. Lee went on a number of field trips to visit refugee centers in Trans-Jordan, for example in Jericho, Amman, and Jerash.

As Myer was appointed as commissioner of the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs in the spring of 1950, the same day he began work, it was agreed that Lee would move from the Office of Territories to become associate commissioner of the Bureau, replacing William Zimmerman. Lee had worked closely with Congressional committees in his role at the Office of Territories, and so was a valuable asset. The day after Myers' appointment, Lee was able to dissuade Senator Hugh A. Butler of Nebraska from campaigning against his appointment.

Lee was later described as being "better known, probably, than almost anybody else in the Bureau on the Hill, in the Interior Committees, and was rather highly regarded up there by the chairman of the committees". He was also known for having a good working relationship with Wayne N. Aspinall, the chair of the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. In the transition from Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration to John F. Kennedy's administration, Lee was effectively in charge of the Bureau, working with John A. Carver Jr., the Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Public Lands Management. This arrangement lasted for several months until Philleo Nash was confirmed as director of the bureau.