[1] He was a founding trustee of the National Center for the Performing Arts and served as its general counsel during the Eisenhower administration and until 1976.

Ralph Becker was born on January 29, 1907, in New York City, to a tailor from Lithuania and a mother from Minsk.

[2][3] He served in the Judge Advocate General's Corps in World War II as a part of the 30th Infantry Division.

[2] He landed in Normandy after D-Day and won a Bronze Star, along with medals from the Belgian, French, and Dutch governments.

[2][3] In the 1960s, he joined an Arctic expedition that he had helped sponsor, and brought back a pair of polar bears as a gift for the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.[2][3] From 1976 to 1977, he was appointed Ambassador to Honduras.