He graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University and joined the investment firm of Dillon, Read & Company.

Such was Flanigan's influence and support for big business that Ralph Nader labeled him as the "mini-president".

The couple had five children, one of whom, Sister Louise Marie Flanigan, is a Roman Catholic nun.

Flanigan, a widower, married an Austrian national, Dorothea von Oswald, in 2008.

[1] Flanigan died, aged 90, at a hospital in a small town outside Salzburg, Austria, from undisclosed causes.