Francis M. Wilhoit

Francis Marion "Frank" Wilhoit was an American political scientist and author who was the Thomas F. Sheehan Professor of Political Science at Drake University.

Life

Wilhoit was born in 1920 in North Carolina. He attended Harvard University, where he earned a bachelor's degree, a master in public affairs, and a PhD in political science. He was friends with Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski in college.
Before going to college, Wilhoit worked in military intelligence as a cryptographer for the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. He also worked for the Central Intelligence Agency.
Wilhoit taught in Georgia and Florida. In 1961, he joined the faculty in the department of political science at Drake University. He was Thomas F. Sheehan Professor from 1981 to 1985, and retired in 1990. He wrote several books.
Wilhoit was vocal in his opposition to racism. In 1967, he spoke about the history of slavery as part of the Progressive Young Negro Enterprises's Negro Heritage Series. One of his books was about massive resistance in the Southern United States; he was awarded the 1973 Chastain Prize for the book. In 1976, he accused a Christian pastor in Texas of hypocrisy; the pastor had denounced the publication of Playboy but had supported Jim Crow laws decades earlier.
Wilhoit lived alone, and was an opera aficionado. He died on June 9, 2010, in Carthage, North Carolina, at age 90.

Misattribution of Wilhoit's law

A quotation popularly known as "Wilhoit's law" is often incorrectly attributed to Francis M. Wilhoit:
However, it was actually a 2018 blog response by 59-year-old Ohio composer, years after Francis Wilhoit's death.