CFIA Shift

Benjamin H. Brown, director of the Center for International Affairs (CFIA) Fellows Program, will retire on June 30 after 25 years in the position.

The CFIA program recently made news when it extended a fellowship to South Korean dissident Kim Dae Jung as part of its program to create opportunities for study and research at Harvard for prominent figures in international affairs.

Leslie H. Brown '48, a career diplomat was hired March 22, following the recommendation of a search committee headed by CFIA Executive Director Chester D. Haskell. He will assumed the new post July 1.

Leslie Brown has been in the State Department since 1955, and is presently the deputy director of the bureau of politico-military affairs.

"I had been thinking seriously of leaving the government--it was just time to get out and do something different," said the future director, who is no relation to Benjamin Brown.

Leslie Brown said that he had known about the CFIA and the Fellows Program. The position struck him as interesting but he found the application process was lengthy.

"I spent seven straight hours in interviews with the search committee," Brown said "I guess that's an academic characteristic."

But Brown is pleased with his new accomplishment. He said though that he will "attack it very carefully" as interviews he has held with ex-Fellows revealed that the Program was already held in high esteem.

"The absolute unanimous view was that the Fellows program is the best thing since sliced bread," said the future director.