Tribute to Ed McGaffigan: Country Loses Outstanding Public Servant

Edward McGaffigan was a model of integrity, ability, and public service, according to Belfer Center Director Graham Allison and Harvard Distinguished Service Professor Joseph Nye. McGaffigan, who grew up in Boston and graduated from Harvard, was also a Kennedy School student (1974-75) and worked closely with Center faculty. He died earlier this month following a battle with cancer.

McGaffigan, appointed to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 1996, and reappointed in 2000 and 2005, was at the time of his death the longest serving member of the NRC in the history of the country. Before joining the NRC, McGaffigan was legislative director for Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico. In a tribute on the Senate floor, Bingaman described McGaffigan as a man who "demonstrated great ability and uncompromising integrity," and praised him for his courage "to be the teller of truth." In his tribute, Bingaman noted that he would always be grateful to Joe Nye for recommending McGaffigan as an adviser on foreign and defense policy when Bingaman was firstappointed to the Armed Services Committee in 1983.

"I knew Ed as a student," Nye said, "and asked him to be my special assistant when I arrived at the State Department to run nonproliferation policy. It was one of the best decisions I ever made."

Graham Allison had the opportunity to teach McGaffigan in a political analysis course, and believes those who worked with him "came to admire his combination of analytic clarity and public service commitment." McGaffigan was, Allison said, "a wonderful model of what we aspire to do at our best."