William Sebastian Cohen is an author and American politician from the U.S. state of Maine. A Republican, Cohen served as both a member of the United States House of Representatives and Senate, and as Secretary of Defense under Democratic President Bill Clinton. Cohen was born in Bangor, Maine. His mother, Clara , was of Protestant Irish ancestry, and his father, Reuben Cohen, was a Russian Jewish immigrant; the two owned the Bangor Rye Bread Co. Cohen attended Hebrew school as a child. When he was told that he would have to undergo a conversion ceremony, however, he decided not to follow... through with the Bar Mitzvah. Instead, he followed his mother's example and became a Christian, specifically within the Unitarian Universalist tradition. After graduating from Bangor High School in 1958, Cohen attended Bowdoin College, graduating cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Latin in 1962. While in high school and college, Cohen was a basketball player and was named to the Maine all-state high school and college basketball team, and at Bowdoin was inducted into the New England All-Star Hall of Fame.
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