M. Bernard Aidinoff

Merton Bernard Aidinoff, who was known as Bernie, was born on February 2, 1929, in Newport, Rhode Island.[1] He was the son of Simon Aidinoff (1899–1950) and Ester (née Miller) Aidinoff (1902–1992) and the brother of Judith Aidinoff and Ruth Elkind.[1]

He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan, followed by a law degree from Harvard Law School in 1953 where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.[2]

Following his law education, Aidinoff became a first lieutenant in the Army Judge Advocate General Corps.[1] After this, he served as a law clerk for judge Learned Hand on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.[1] In 1956, Aidinoff joined the law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, where his expertise was in the area of tax law. He would remain at Sullivan & Cromwell until his retirement in 1996.

Within the law profession, Aidinoff had several additional roles including chairman of the Section of Taxation of the American Bar Association, chairman of the Tax Program Committee of the American Law Institute, editor-in-chief of The Tax Layer, chairman of the Executive Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, and a member of the Commissioner's Advisory Committee of the Internal Revenue Service.[1]

In 1956, he married Celia "Cissie" Spiro (d. 1984), who eventually became the vice president of the Legal Aid Society in New York and the deputy chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee in 1981 and 1982.[6] They were the parents of Seth George Aidinoff, who married Lucie Livingston,[6] and Gail Aidinoff Scovell.[1]

In 1996, Aidinoff married Elsie (née Vanderbilt) Newburg, the daughter of former Rhode Island Governor William Henry Vanderbilt III from his second marriage to Anne Gordon Colby.[7]

He died on August 8, 2016, in Manhattan, New York City.[1]