He Stood Taller Than the Rest

John Kenneth Galbraith, a longtime economics professor, onetime ambassador to India, and five-time presidential adviser, died on May 29 in Mount Auburn Hospital. He was 97.

Galbraith, who joined the Harvard faculty in 1934 fresh from earning his doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley, retired in 1975 as the Warburg professor of economics, but he remained a presence on and around the University’s campus until his death.

“He was obviously enormously loyal to Harvard and took a great interest in all aspects of things that were going on,” said Benjamin M. Friedman ’66, Maier professor of political economy and a “very good friend” of Galbraith’s.

And Derek C. Bok, incoming interim president, said at the memorial service for the six-foot-eight-inch economist last Wednesday that Harvard “will never be quite the same” without him.

“He casts a long shadow, both literally and figuratively,” Bok said.

Galbraith was a resident tutor in Winthrop House from 1935 to 1937. In 1939, he left the University when his contract was not renewed, instead teaching at Princeton University and the University of California and working with the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Class of 1904. Galbraith he returned to Harvard in 1948. He was offered tenure just one year later.

Galbraith was a devoted Democrat and advised Presidents Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy ’40, Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton. He was a socially aware thinker who lamented the proliferation of economists who were “good at the blackboard” but did not apply their theories to real situations, a class of thinker that he called “esoteric,” according to his biographer, Kennedy School of Government lecturer Richard Parker.

Galbraith opposed this category to “exoteric” economists, “men like himself who worked outside the University and used it mainly as a place to refuel,” said Parker.

“His biggest impact on the world, I think, was to provide a model of a kind of social science that is politically engaged and balanced in its use of textbook science with practical experience,” Parker said. “His initial training was in agricultural economics, which is a very applied economic theory.”

Friedman agreed that Galbraith had always focused on the practical and aimed to interest a wide audience.

“He was a man who very much believed in conveying his ideas to a broad public on the theory that it mattered what people thought,” Friedman said.

The influential economist’s personal qualities were also remembered, with both Parker and Friedman warmly recounting Galbraith’s “marvelous” speaking style, sense of humor, and ego.

Parker recalled bringing copies of Galbraith’s biography in a Japanese translation to him in the hospital just two days before his death.

“He looked at it and turned it over and examined it and then, with a twinkle in his eye, said ‘Richard, I do not know Japanese, but given the importance of this subject, I shall dedicate my remaining days to learning it.’”

The Canadian-born Galbraith was born in Iona Station, Ontario in 1908 and educated as an undergraduate at the University of Toronto.

He was an economic adviser to Kennedy during the 1960 campaign and maintained close links with the family—Senator Edward M. Kennedy ’54-’56 spoke at his memorial service last week. President Kennedy made him ambassador to India from 1961 to 1963.

Galbraith received the highest national civilian honor, the Medal of Freedom, twice in his lifetime, first from President Harry S. Truman in 1946 for his work during the Second World War and then from Clinton in 2000.

He was a prolific writer, publishing over 1,000 articles and reviews and more than 30 books.

Galbraith is survived by his wife of 69 years, Catherine Atwater Galbraith, his three sons J. Alan, Peter, and James, and 10 grandchildren.

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