Obituary : J. A. Volpe; Transit Secretary Under Nixon

John Anthony Volpe, three-term governor of Massachusetts and U.S. secretary of transportation in the Richard Nixon Administration, has died. He was 85.

Volpe died in a hospital Friday in Nahant, the Boston suburb where he had lived for 23 years.

The son of Italian immigrants and a self-made millionaire, Volpe was elected governor in 1960, bucking a Democratic tide that sent John F. Kennedy to the White House.

After narrowly losing in 1962 to Endicott Peabody, Volpe was reelected governor in 1964 and in 1966 when the term changed from two to four years.

Volpe resigned the governorship to accept the job as transportation secretary for Nixon after Nixon rejected him as a running mate in favor of Spiro Agnew.

“The ball didn’t bounce my way,” Volpe said at the time. “I’m very frank in admitting I was somewhat disappointed.”

A skillful engineer in business and politics, Volpe founded a successful construction firm during the Depression and worked his way as a Republican to the top of the political hill in a Democrat-dominated state.

In 1953, Gov. Christian A. Herter appointed him commissioner of public works for Massachusetts. President Dwight D. Eisenhower named Volpe interim federal highway administrator in 1956.

As a transportation expert, Volpe had a lasting impact on Southern California and the nation. He supervised construction of Eisenhower’s interstate highway system in the 1950s and served during the Nixon era when the controversial Century Freeway was begun.

Volpe strongly advocated innovative safety devices such as reflector license plates and air bags for automobiles. He also championed mass rapid transit systems for urban areas, including air cushion vehicles designed to travel at 300 m.p.h. between Los Angeles International Airport and the San Fernando Valley and between Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

Two of his most important efforts as Massachusetts governor were bolstering the near-bankrupt New Haven & Hartford Railroad and the deficit-burdened mass transit agency in Boston.

When most Republicans in the state supported New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller in the 1968 presidential campaign, Volpe stuck with Nixon and was rewarded with the Cabinet appointment.

He served as transportation secretary until 1973, when Nixon named him ambassador to Italy. Volpe remained in that post for four years.

He served in World War II with the Seabees, the Navy’s construction battalion, and emerged as a lieutenant commander.

He also was an officer of five banks and publisher of the Malden News and Medford Daily Mercury.

Volpe is survived by his wife, Giovaninna Benedetto, a daughter, Loretta Jean Rotondi, and a son, John Jr.