Remembering Paul Volcker

Following the passing of Paul Volcker on December 8, Belfer Center Director Ash Carter shared this tribute with the community.

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

With the passing of former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker Sunday, the world lost a remarkable public servant; Harvard Kennedy School lost a legendary graduate; the Belfer Center lost a great colleague; and I lost a dear friend. 

Over a life spanning ten decades, Paul showed the rest of us that doing the right thing – and sticking with it in the face of resistance – can build a better world as nothing else can. The more vexing the public challenge, the more it attracted Paul’s strategic imagination and resolve.

In the 1970s and 1980s, that meant whipping inflation. In the 1990s, it meant reclaiming funds for Holocaust victims. A decade ago, it meant major banking reforms to prevent another great recession. And in the years before his passing, it meant motivating and equipping talented young people to commit themselves to public service. Paul wanted the next generation to regard “serial bureaucrat” with as much admiration as “serial entrepreneur.”

“There are lots of reasons to be critical of government,” he said at a JFK Jr. Forum several years ago, “but that’s why it’s important for Kennedy School students to get involved, and to deal with these important challenges.”

Paul felt this need deep in his bones. As he wrote in his 2018 memoir: “Distrust and ill-will permeate attitudes toward government…. That needs to change. And it won’t be easy. As a signal of my concern, I decided to establish a foundation with a mission impossible: Can we stimulate others—particularly schools of public policy, of management, of administration—to rethink how government can and should respond to the needs of the twenty-first century?”

It’s a sobering question. But I’m confident that we at the Belfer Center are helping to carry forth Paul’s mission. Every time we mentor a student, every time we brief a member of Congress, every time we help a citizen better grasp an issue, we are doing the quiet work that makes better government, and thus better lives, possible.

Graham Allison rightly called Paul, who graduated from the precursor to Harvard Kennedy School in 1951 and continued to serve as a member of the Belfer Center’s International Council, “the very model of a modern public servant.”

Paul’s professional arc should remind current HKS students that the topics they choose for their Policy Analysis Exercises may be more consequential to their careers than they realize. As a senior at Princeton, Paul wrote his senior thesis on Federal Reserve policy since World War II. The 250-page report argued that the Fed needed a firmer hand to thwart inflation.

I’ll miss Paul’s wisdom, his good humor, and his gentle reminders not to take ourselves too seriously, even when doing the most serious work there is. Reading his New York Times obituary, I was struck by this anecdote:

On Saturday, Oct. 6, 1979, Mr. Volcker held an evening news conference in the grand boardroom at the Fed’s headquarters on Constitution Avenue. It was the first time in memory that a Fed chairman had addressed the news media, and the Fed’s staff scrambled to gather the press corps.

Pope John Paul II was visiting Washington; when CBS said that it didn’t have a spare camera crew, Mr. Volcker’s spokesman persuaded the network to abandon the pontiff. “Send your crew here,” he told a CBS producer. “Long after the pope is gone, you’ll remember this one.”

Prophetic words. We do remember, Paul. And what we remember most is your civility, your spirit of service, and your determination to do the right thing. We miss you, my friend.

Media Coverage

“Paul A. Volcker, Fed Chairman Who Waged War on Inflation, Is Dead at 92” | The New York Times

“Paul Volcker, Inflation Tamer Who Set Bank Risk Rule, Dies at 92” | Bloomberg

“Paul Volcker, Who Guided U.S. Monetary Policy and Finance for Nearly Three Decades, Is Dead” | The Wall Street Journal

“Paul Volcker was the savior our economy needed” | The Washington Post

“Paul Volcker, the towering former Fed chairman and economist, has died at age 92” | Business Insider