Assassinated U.S. Congressman. He was a Democrat U. S. Congressman from 5th Congressional Direct of Nassau County, New York when he was shot to death on March 14, 1980 in his Manhattan law offices by a mentally-ill man, Dennis Sweeney. Over the years, his work in the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam Antiwar Movement has been cited as an inspiration by many noted of the leaders of the United States. He was educated at a prep school in the Bronx, then University of North Carolina, and his law degree from Yale University in 1954. He became a college professor and administrator, holding posts at Stanford University, North Carolina State University, and City College of New York. It was at Stanford University that he became an acquaintance of undergraduate student Sweeney. He help to start the "Dump Johnson" movement within the Democratic Party in an attempt to prevent United President Lyndon Johnson from becoming a Presidential candidate in 1968. He was one of the most vocal critics of the Los Angeles and Federal authorities to reopen the investigation of the June 6, 1968 assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy. On the subject of the assassination investigation, he had an one-hour interview by conservative commentator, William F. Buckley, on the PSB television show, "Firing Line" in 1975. He was very close to the Kennedy family. President Jimmy Carter appointed him as the United States Representative to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, thus heading the United States delegation to the 33rd regular annual session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva Switzerland in 1977. He served as ambassador from August 1977 to June 1978 in the capacity of alternate United State Representative for Special Political Affairs to the United Nations; he resigned this post to run for Congress. At his funeral, the eulogies were delivered at this family' request by Buckley and Senator Kennedy. To honor him, the Allard K. Lowenstein Civil Rights Scholarship was established at Hofstra University in 2007; Yale has several program named for him; and an adjacent area in the United Nations headquarters in New York City was named Allard K. Lowenstein Square.