Walt Whitman Rostov

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Walt Whitman Rostov, October 7th, 1968
Walt Rostov (left) with US President Johnson , 1967

Walt Whitman Rostow (born October 7, 1916 in New York City , †  February 13, 2003 in Austin , Texas ) was an American economist and economic historian . He became famous for his model for development theory published in 1960 , the Rostov model named after him . From 1960 to 1969 he was also a member of the US government, including from 1966 to 1969 as National Security Advisor to President Lyndon B. Johnson .

Life

Walt Whitman Rostow was born in New York in 1916 to Russian immigrants Viktor Aaron and Lillian Rostow. At the age of 15, he graduated from New Haven high school in 1932 and received a scholarship to study economics and history at Yale . In 1936, Rostov was awarded the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship , which enabled him from 1936 to 1938 at Balliol College of the University of Oxford to study. He received his doctorate in 1940 at Yale with his dissertation British Trade Fluctuations, 1868-1896 . Rostov then taught economics at Columbia University for a year .

After the USA entered World War II , Rostov became a member of the Office of Strategic Services under William Joseph Donovan in 1941 . After the war he taught from 1946 to 1947 as Harmsworth Professor of History at Oxford. In the following years Rostov taught at Columbia University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In 1957 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 1983 to the American Philosophical Society .

In 1958, Rostov became President Dwight D. Eisenhower's speechwriter . In 1960 John F. Kennedy called him to his campaign team. After Kennedy's election, Rostov resigned his work at MIT and worked as a security advisor, later in the State Department as the director of policy planning . Also in 1960 was his much-noticed and discussed book The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto , as a new contribution to the modernization models .

After Kennedy's assassination in November 1963, he continued his work under the new President Lyndon B. Johnson . In early 1966, Rostov was appointed National Security Advisor ; he held this office until January 1969. He was increasingly criticized for being one of the main culprits for the escalation of the Vietnam War . With the election of Richard Nixon as President of the United States in 1969, Rostov left politics.

Since MIT prevented him from returning to his old chair, he accepted a position at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin as a junior professor emeritus. There he taught economics and history until his death in 2003.

See also

literature

  • David Milne: America's Rasputin. Walt Rostov and the Vietnam War. Hill and Wang, New York NY 2008, ISBN 978-0-374-10386-6 .

Web links

Commons : Walt Whitman Rostow  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Member History: Walt W. Rostow. American Philosophical Society, accessed December 23, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Rostov, Walt Whitman
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rostov, Walt; Rostov, WW
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American economist, economic historian, and government member
DATE OF BIRTH October 7, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH February 13, 2003
Place of death Austin , Texas