Service Honors Galbraith

Memorial Church resounded with the sound of hymns and fond tributes last Wednesday at a service in remembrance of longtime Harvard professor and influential economist John Kenneth Galbraith, who died April 29 at the age of 97.

Hundreds of well-wishers showed up to fill the pews of Memorial Church and listened to an array of speakers as well-known as Galbraith himself share their memories of the former Paul M. Warburg professor of economics emeritus.

After a welcome by incoming Harvard President Derek C. Bok, the prolific author’s son James K. Galbraith ’74 spoke first, calling his father “my mentor, my coach, my critic, and my friend.”

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who spoke towards the end of the service, also touched on Galbraith’s wisdom and good advice, mentioning how important his support had been to his father John F. Kennedy’s bid for the presidency.

“He was an eloquent voice of reason for our times,” Kennedy said. “In another age he would have been a founding father.”

And former president Bill Clinton, in a letter read by Galbraith’s grandson, wrote that “one of the great joys of the presidency was getting to meet and to know people I had long admired. John Kenneth Galbraith fit squarely into that camp.”

Many affectionately recalled Galbraith’s idiosyncrasies, such as his unapologetic ego.

“I’m old, sick, weak, and intellectually perfect,” his son J. Alan Galbraith ’63 remembered him saying in response to a question about his health shortly before his death.

George S. McGovern, a former U.S. senator and presidential candidate, described Galbraith’s division of “egotistical people” into two camps, one that used their ego to cover their inadequacies, and one that was “genuinely superior,” into which category he placed himself.

McGovern gave the example of when his daughter was deciding where to go to university, and he asked Galbraith what the difference was between Wellesley and Harvard.

“‘Well,’ he snorted, ‘at Harvard if you’re lucky you might get Galbraith once a week. At Wellesley you get one of my C- students three times a week.’” McGovern recalled Galbraith saying.

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., a historian who advised President Kennedy alongside Galbraith, could not attend the service due to his health but delivered a message through his son Stephen Schlesinger, calling Galbraith “my closest friend in the world.”

“His brilliant employment of subversive weapons...did not always please the more sedate members of his profession, but it never failed to please the rest of us,” Schlesinger wrote. “In a quiet way, without fanfare, he helped more people and promoted more noble causes...than most people have ever known.”

Bok described former professor, author and ambassador as “the paprika in our stew” at Harvard, “adding a truly distinctive and memorable quality.”

The incoming interim President said of the six-foot-eight professor, “He casts a long shadow, both literally and figuratively, and Harvard without him will never be quite the same.”

Journalists William F. Buckley Jr. and Gloria Steinem, Galbraith’s biographer Richard Parker, Thomas W. Lamont University Professor Amartya Sen, and other members of Galbraith’s family also spoke at the service.

—Staff writer Alexandra C. Bell can be reached at acbell@fas.harvard.edu.