John C. West

West was born in Camden, South Carolina and grew up in the farming community of Charlotte Thompson near Camden.[1][2] The following May, his father, along with seventy-six other persons, was killed in a fire at the nearby Cleveland School.[2] His mother and maternal grandmother escaped unharmed from the fire.

In 1942, he graduated from The Citadel with a bachelor's degree in political science. After graduation, he enlisted in the United States Army as an intelligence officer during World War II, assigned to stateside service.[2]

Following the war, West earned a law degree from the University of South Carolina in 1946. From 1948 to 1952, he served on the state Highway Commission. In 1954, he coordinated the unsuccessful U.S. Senate candidacy of Edgar A. Brown, who lost in a write-in campaign waged by former Governor Strom Thurmond.[2]

From 1955 to 1967, West served in the state senate. He was assigned to several committees which studied public school curriculum, investigated activities of the Communist Party of the United States of America, monitored the state Development Board, examined state support for the nursing profession and junior colleges, and recommended revisions to the state constitution.

West was the 80th Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina, having served from 1967 to 1971. In the 1970 gubernatorial election, West with 53.2 percent of the vote defeated U.S. Representative Albert W. Watson, a Democrat-turned-Republican. Regarded as a New South governor, West vowed in his 1971 inaugural address that he would "eliminate from our government any vestige of discrimination because of race, creed, sex, religion or any other barrier to fairness for all citizens."[3]

After his tenure as governor, West returned to private law practice and was subsequently appointed United States Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, a position that he held from 1977 to 1981. After returning to the United States, he became a Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of South Carolina. From 1993 until his death from cancer, he was a partner in the Hilton Head law office of Bethea, Jordan, and Griffin.

West married Lois Rhame in 1942. They had three children.[1] West died of liver cancer at his home on Hilton Head Island on March 21, 2004.[3]

• John West: In His Own Words at University of South Carolina, South Carolina Political Collections
• John Carl West Papers at South Carolina Political Collections, University of South Carolina
• Governor John C. West Collection at the South Carolina Department of Archives & History (RG 552000)
• 1971 John C. West Inaugural Parade and Swearing in Ceremony on South Carolina Educational Television