Leverett Edwards; Ex-Chairman of National Mediation Board

Leverett Edwards, 87, a 20-year member of the National Mediation Board who helped avert or settle dozens of national railway and airline strikes. Edwards, an Oklahoma lawyer, began serving on emergency presidential mediation boards in the 1940s. In 1950, President Harry S. Truman appointed him to the three-member National Mediation Board. He was named again to the panel by Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson and served several terms as its chairman. After his retirement in 1970, he worked as an arbitrator for Braniff Airlines and served as a free-lance labor-management mediator. In Ft. Worth on Sunday after a long illness.