HMS Grad Wins Medal Of Freedom

Ten Americans, including former Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter and a Harvard Medical School graduate will receive the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the White House announced yesterday.

Edgar A. Wayburn, who graduated from Harvard Medical School cum laude in 1930, will be among those receiving the medal in a White House ceremony next Wednesday.

Wayburn--who also practiced medicine as an internist and clinical professor--served as five-time president of the Sierra Club, a national environmental advocacy organization of which he is currently honorary president.

During his presidency, Wayburn helped establish the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, a 75,000-acre California nature preserve.

Current Sierra Club President Chuck McGrady praised Wayburn in a statement released yesterday.

"Families have Ed to thank when they gaze at sea lions on the California coast, hike among redwood trees or bicycle through Golden Gate Park," McGrady said.

"The Medal of Freedom symbolizes the debt of thanks all Americans owe to this man who saved millions of acres of wilderness for our children to enjoy," he said.

Also to be honored at the ceremony is Ford, the 38th president, who will be recognized for "his honesty and integrity" and his efforts to restore confidence in government after the Watergate scandal led to Richard M. Nixon's resignation, a tribute from the White House said.

Ford and seven others will get their awards Wednesday at the White House.

Carter, the 39th president, will be recognized for brokering the Camp David peace accords, signing the Panama Canal treaty and re-establishing normal diplomatic relations with China.

Carter will be honored Monday at a ceremony in Atlanta at the Carter Center.

His wife Rosalynn, with whom he works on low-income housing issues and other humanitarian causes, will receive her own medal.

"As a statesman, President Carter has been a successful diplomat in hot spots around the world," the White House said.

"Mrs. Carter is a longtime advocate of improved mental health care, widespread childhood immunization, women's equality and enhanced care for seniors. Each year, the Carters help to build homes for the needy through Habitat for Humanity."

Former President Ronald Reagan has received the award but his successor, George Bush, has not.

Other new recipients are:

--Lloyd M. Bentsen, Clinton's first Treasury secretary who served 22 years in the Senate and six years in the House. He was the Democratic Party's vice presidential nominee in 1988.

--Edgar M. Bronfman Sr., president of the World Jewish Congress. He has "worked to insure basic rights for Jews around the world and to fight anti-Semitism and has spearheaded the effort to retrieve the assets of Holocaust victims and their families," according to the White House tribute.

--Evy Dubrow, an advocate for more than 50 years of laws to improve domestic labor conditions. "She has been influential in numerous causes, including broadening laws against discrimination and protecting American industry from unfair foreign competition," the tribute said.

--Sister M. Isolina Ferre, founder of community service centers, clinics and programs to empower the poor in Puerto Rico, New York and Appalachia. She gained international recognition in the late 1950s and 1960s for her mediation efforts with youth gangs in Brooklyn.

--Oliver White Hill, civil rights lawyer. He is best known for litigating one of the school desegregation cases that became the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education case.

--Max Kampelman, lawyer, diplomat and negotiator in Democratic and Republican administrations. "In those roles, he emphasized human rights in East-West diplomacy and prepared the foundation for long-term arms reductions between the United States and the Soviet Union," the tribute said.

--Wire dispatches were used in the reporting of this story.