Tribute to Richard Darman – Public Servant, Counselor, Friend

Friends and colleagues filled the sanctuary of Harvard's Memorial Church to remember Richard (Dick) Darman, a member of the Belfer Center's Board of Directors, valued colleague of the Harvard community, and star among the public and private sectors. Darman passed away earlier in the year.

Among those in attendance were The Honorable James A. Baker III, who gave the tribute address, Darman's college roommate Scott Harshbarger, his colleague from the Carlyle Group David Rubinstein, and Belfer Director Graham Allison.

Baker, who served in senior government positions under three presidents, said Darman "firmly believed that you could shape a better nation through monumental hard work, through love of country, and through a willingness to compromise with your fellow Americans."

"Dick Darman was a great public servant, wise counselor, great father, and wonderful friend," Allison said. "He will be mourned by more of us than he ever expected."

In the public sector, he served as director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget in the George H.W. Bush administration, as deputy secretary of the U.S. Treasury in the Reagan administration, as assistant secretary of commerce in the Ford administration, and in a succession of Cabinet departments at the Departments of Health, Education, and Welfare, Defence, and Justice in the Nixon administration. At Harvard Kennedy School, he was a public service professor and lecturer in public policy and management. Darman was a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School.

Harshbarger, Darman's Harvard College roommate, read from a letter that he wrote to Darman's three sons and wife. "He was one of the most remarkable people I've known - in intellect, discipline, focus, precise thoughts and analysis, and public achievement," said Harshbarger, the attorney general of Massachusetts from 1990-1999 and democratic gubernatorial candidate in 1998. "While of different political bents almost from day one, I always felt pretty good about my country's likelihood either of success - or to do less or no harm - as long as Dick was there - with Richardson, Reagan and Baker, or Bush One."

Rubenstein, founder of the Carlyle Group which Darman joined after leaving government and the Kennedy School, said, "I recruited Dick to join my firm fifteen years ago, and had the privilege - and honor - of working closely with him. I realized that Dick possessed a mind unlike any I had seen in decades of working with other talented individuals. His ability to analyze a problem, develop a creative solution, and persuasively communicate that solution was truly the product of a unique and beautiful mind," he said.

"The Kennedy School had no better friend than Dick Darman, and no better role model for the many students he recruited, taught or mentored," said Rubinstein, whose generous donation has made possible the Richard G. Darman Seminar Room at the school.

The site of the memorial service - Harvard's Memorial Church - was significant to Darman. It was there where he was married and where two of his sons had their Harvard welcoming service, where his father-in-law's name is inscribed, and where the memorial service was held for Jeffrey Forbes, a Harvard College roommate.