Kennedy aide Reed dies in Castine

BOSTON – James A. Reed, a lawyer and investment banker who was a former assistant Treasury Secretary in John F. Kennedy’s administration, died Wednesday in Maine, his family said. He was 92.

Reed and the future president became friends when they met on a troop ship headed for Navy service in the South Pacific during World War II, said Reed’s son, Craig C. Reed.

Reed supported Kennedy’s first campaign even though he was a Republican, his son said.

Reed joined the Kennedy administration as a special assistant to the president’s brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, in 1961, and was appointed to the Treasury Department the next year.

He stayed on until 1965, working on a reorganization of the Customs Service. His father remained in touch with members of the Kennedy family, Reed said.

Reed and Robert B. Anderson, a former Eisenhower administration Treasury Secretary, started an international financial business in 1968. Reed opened his own international financial firm in 1975 in New York, where he kept an office until recently.

“He was alert, active, fully engaged and very active in business,” until a week before his death at a health care facility in Castine, Maine, of complications related to pulmonary fibrosis, Craig Reed said.

Reed had recently lived in Hancock, N.H., but “always kept one foot” in Longmeadow, Mass., where he was a longtime resident, his son said.

Reed was born in Pittsfield and graduated from Amherst College and Harvard Law School.

He also is survived by three daughters: Candice Reed Stern, Susan Hamilton Reed Macnair and Rosamunde Reed Curran.