Robert R. Bowie, who resigned yesterday as Assistant Secretary of State for Policy Planning, will direct the University's first Center for International Affairs, to be established next fall, it was learned yesterday. Bowie will be given the dual titles of Professor of International Affairs and Director of the Center.

The Center will provide the means for research and teaching of the "basic factors" in international relations.

In giving his resignation to President Eisenhower, Bowie said he felt "obligated to return to private life this fall." He had also been the State Department's representative on the National Security Council planning board.

Bowie was a Law School professor here from 1945 to 1953, before he went to Washington.

The Center itself, in addition to conducting research in the basic problems of world politics, will also give advanced training to men interested in the foreign service. It will train specialists in such fields as politics, economics, sociology, and history.

No Previous Facility

The new Center should give a tremendous boost to the general field of International Affairs here. Up to now, there has been no one facility for such a study. Different facets of it were covered by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the School of Public Administration, and the different area study programs. The Russian Research Center and the International Legal Studies program of the Law School will also continue their specialized work.

Dean Bundy said yesterday that the "new Center will give new depth to the work of the Graduate School of Public Administration, which trains men primarily for government service, but its work will be, as well, a major reinforcement to the interests of many social scientists in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences."

Two Years of Planning

The creation of the Center follows at least two years of careful study and planning by members of different faculties at Harvard. Several prominent men in the past have expressed the need for such a Center, including Rupert Emerson, profesor of Government, and Edward S. Mason, dean of the School of Public Administration.

Bowie, who will play an important role in the building up of the new Center, has had long experience in government, law, and teaching. He received his A.B. from Princeton in 1931 and the LL.B. from Harvard in 1934.