Dr. Samuel Huntington's first book, "The Soldier and the State: the Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations," was such an influential book that it merited a 50th anniversary symposium at West Point last year, but when it was first published in 1957, reviewers weren't so kind.
"The first review he got, the reviewer compared him to Mussolini - and unfavorably," said James Perry, a former graduate student of Dr. Huntington's. The book endorsed the role of civilian authority over military institutions, and was inspired by President Truman's firing of General Douglas MacArthur, the popular Army leader who disagreed with Truman's handling of China's entry into the Korean War in 1951.
"He tended to have views that were unconventional and remarkably prescient. He would have a finger on the pulse of where events were headed," Perry added.
One of the nation's preeminent political scientists, a longstanding professor at Harvard University, and founder of the influential journal Foreign Policy, Dr. Huntington died Wednesday at an Oak Bluffs nursing home. He was 81.
"He was a man of enormous influence," said his longtime friend and colleague, Henry Rosovsky. "I think he was one of the really great figures in the field."
A specialist in many areas, particularly national security and military-civilian affairs, Dr. Huntington worked in the Carter White House as coordinator of security planning for the National Security Council from 1977-1978. Later, he was a member of the Presidential Commission on Long-Term Integrated Strategy in the 1980s.
He was also active in Democratic politics, and met his wife, Nancy, during the presidential campaign of Adlai Stevenson in 1956. He was a speechwriter for Stevenson, and they met while working on a speech together that the candidate later used during the campaign.
"After we took it to the post office, he asked me to go to the Casablanca for a beer," Mrs. Huntington recalled of their first date at the Cambridge watering hole. She said the couple later told Stevenson that "he played Cupid." They were married in 1957.
Despite the brickbats that accompanied his first book, it was an article toward the end of his career that became his most cited, and most controversial, work. "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order" centered on how differences between cultures throughout the world would be the cause of most post-Cold War conflicts. It was this premise, said former student Todd Fine, that inspired Dr. Huntington's argument against the war in Iraq.
"Even though he didn't make a big to-do about it ahead of time, he was against the Iraq war. [It was] his belief that it was unnecessary to antagonize other cultures and civilizations," Fine said.
Dr. Huntington was born in 1927 in New York City and he was impressive from an early age. In a span of five years, he graduated from Yale at age 18 in 1946, served briefly in the Army, received a master's degree from the University of Chicago, and then his doctorate from Harvard in 1951. By then, he had also begun his long teaching career at Harvard - at the age of 23.
Except for a brief stint at Columbia University, where he was associate director of the Institute of War and Peace Studies from 1959 to 1962, Dr. Huntington remained attached to Harvard for six decades. A longtime professor of government, and former chairman of the department, he was most recently the Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor. He also served as president of the American Political Science Association from 1986-1987.
"I will remember him as a great teacher and as an accomplished professor who was always willing to listen to students' ideas," said Fine.
Dr. Huntington's classes were frequently oversubscribed, a fact that Fine said was because of Dr. Huntington's demands for a small class size. "He insisted that his classes have small enough class size that there could be dialogue between students and professor."
Nancy Huntington agreed.
"He was a tremendous mentor to his students. A whole generation of young scholars out there . . . grew up under his wing," she said.
In addition to his wife, Dr. Huntington leaves two sons, Nicholas of Newton and Timothy of Boston; and four grandchildren.
Burial services are private. A memorial service at Harvard is planned for the spring. Details are pending.
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