Harlan Cleveland, 90; "Get-It-All-Together" Diplomat, Political Scientist and Social Philosopher

Harlan Cleveland's final publishing project, after a dozen books and hundreds of other writings amounting to a 72-page bibliography, was to contribute two chapters during his 90th year to Adlai Stevenson's Lasting Legacy (Alvin Liebling, ed. Macmillan 2008). He was the intermediary between UN Ambassador Stevenson in New York and Secretary of State Dean Rusk in Washington between 1961 and 1965, the Kennedy years of the Cuban missile crisis, the Congo crisis and so much else. From Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, he went on to become Ambassador to NATO under President Johnson, during the years when French President Charles de Gaulle forced the NATO headquarters to relocate to Brussels. Cleveland's advice to career seekers: "Always take by preference the job you don't know how to do."

Cleveland prepared well for taking on leadership positions in many fields that tested his adaptability. A few years after he was born in New York City on January 19, 1918, he was described by his grandmother in her journal: "Harlan is an earnest young man." He studied in Switzerland as a child, became fluent in French there, and went on to attend Andover Academy, Princeton University and, as a Rhodes Scholar, Oxford University.

Blind in one eye after a childhood accident, he was disqualified from serving in the military during World War II but eagerly chose a career in public service, first with the Allied Control Commission for Italy, with UNRRA the UN relief administration in Italy after Mussolini's death and then in China getting aid and food to people on both sides during Chiang Kai-shek and Chairman Mao's civil war. He worked on the Marshall Plan following the war.

Washington was renowned for "inner-outers" and Harlan Cleveland was "in" DC in Democratic years and "out" during Republican administrations. In the 9050's, he was executive editor and then publisher of The Reporter Magazine in New York and then Dean of Syracuse University's Maxwell Graduate School for Citizenship and Public Affairs.

Following the Kennedy and Johnson years, Cleveland surprised those who considered New York and Washington the center of the planet by serving for five years as President of the University of Hawaii – years that saw the creation of a medical school, a law school and a massive international astronomy project with an observatory on Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. In The Future Executive (Harper & Row, 1972), he described leadership, the "get-it-all-together" profession that demands "unwarranted optimism" and "improvisation on a general sense of direction." He saw "a bright future for complexity."

Cleveland led the international affairs program of the Aspen Institute next, and when the death of Hubert Humphrey brought forth tens of millions of dollars in donations to support Humphrey's brainchild, Cleveland helped to develop and led the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. He also wrote 167 columns for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

At 65, Harlan Cleveland entered a computer store and the young man who worked there, spotting his gray hair, asked, "You're not buying this for you, are you, sir?" Taking that cue, Cleveland went on to become a major thinker and philosopher about the effects of information technology on society (The Knowledge Executive, Dutton 1985). In his later years, he served as President of the World Academy of Art and Science.

Harlan Cleveland is survived by his wife of 66 years, Lois, of Sterling, Virginia; by his three children, Zoë, Melantha and Alan, all of Palmyra, Virginia; and by his grandson, Jan Harlan Kalicki of Littleton, Colorado.

A Memorial Service will be held at the chapel at Falcon's Landing on June 19th at 1:30 PM.