ROSTOW, WALT WHITMAN

ROSTOW, WALT WHITMAN (1916–2003), U.S. economist; brother of eugene rostow . Born in New York City, Rostow received a Ph.D. in economics from Yale University in 1940. That year, he taught economics at Columbia University. During World War II (1942–45), he served as a major in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). After serving as assistant chief of the State Department's German-Austrian economic section (1945–46), he went to Oxford, England, as professor of American history (1946–47). In the latter year, he became assistant to the executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Europe, a post he held until 1950 when he was appointed professor of American history at Cambridge University. Later that year, Rostow returned to the United States to teach economic history at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston. In 1961 he moved to Washington to serve as deputy special assistant to President john f. kennedy , and in the same year became counselor of the policy-planning council of the State Department. In 1966 President Lyndon johnson named him his Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, and he became known as an advocate of United States military intervention in Vietnam. In the Middle East, Rostow urged a policy   of U.S. diplomatic and military support for Israel, particularly after the 1967 Six-Day War. In 1969, with the change in the administration, he returned to teaching economics and history – at the University of Texas. When he retired from teaching, Rostow became the Rex G. Baker, Jr. Professor Emeritus of Political Economy. In 1992, he helped found the Austin Project and served as chairman of the board and task force director from 1992 to 1998. Among his many honors, Rostow received the Order of the British Empire (honorary, military division, 1945); the Legion of Merit (1945); and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (with distinction, 1969). Rostow's more than 30 publications include: The Stages of Economic Growth (1952), a widely influential work in which Rostow outlined five stages of economic growth through which societies pass; Dynamics of Soviet Society (1953); The United States in the World Arena (1960); View from the Seventh Floor (1964); Politics and the Stages of Growth (1971); How It All Began (1975); Why the Poor Get Richer and the Rich Slow Down (1980); Theorists of Economic Growth from David Hume to the Present (1990); The Great Population Spike and After (1998); and Concept and Controversy (2003). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: D. Wise, in: L. Tanzer (ed.), Kennedy Circle (1961), 29–57; P. Anderson, Presidents' Men (1968), 383–5; Current Biography Yearbook 1961 (1962), 395–7. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: C. Kindleberger and G. Di Tella (eds.), Economics in the Long View: Essays in Honor of W.W. Rostow (1982). (Joachim O. Ronall / Ruth Beloff (2nd ed.)