Press Release
Richard Darman, budget director for George H. Bush and a prominent member of the Belfer Center's board of directors, died Friday, Jan. 25. He was 64.
At the Harvard Kennedy School, he was a member of our faculty on three different occasions between 1977 and 2002 — as an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy, a Lecturer in Public Policy, and a Public Service Professor. In the intervening years he served as a member of President Bush's cabinet and Director of the Office of Management and Budget; Deputy Secretary of the Treasury; and Assistant to the President of the United States.
In the private sector, he was been a managing director of Shearson, Lehman Brothers and a partner of the Carlyle Group.
As Time Magazine's Laurence Barrett wrote, Darman's "dirty little secret" was that he believed in government — especially the federal government. He was extraordinarily effective at his job, which showed as he rose to higher and higher levels in successive administrations.
"Dick Darman was a great public servant, wise counselor, great father, and wonderful friend," said Graham Allison, director of the Belfer Center. "He will be mourned by more of us than he ever expected. Always cool and analytic, he nonetheless touched more lives more deeply in demonstrating the power of strategic synthesis that cuts to the heart of the matter than anyone I've known."
David Ellwood, dean of the Harvard Kennedy School, wrote a note to faculty, staff, and students to inform them of the news. Over the years, Darman served as an advisor to the Kennedy School. He most recently served as a member of the School's Visiting Committee, through which he provided "invaluable feedback and guidance about the direction and activities of the School," Ellwood wrote.
"Dick's many years of dedicated service to our nation is a striking example of the commitment to public service that we encourage and celebrate here at the Kennedy School," Ellwood wrote. "He believed in holding the government to the highest possible standards."
See the full New York Times article on Darman here.