Schlesinger called for the consolidation of the government offices that handled energy and tried to bring together scientific and environmental knowledge in developing an approach to the crisis.

And Schlesinger seemed very optimistic about the future of atomic energy at the time.

"By 1990, our estimate rises to almost 50 percent of total power," Schlesinger said.

Needless to say, Schlesinger's predictions were off the mark. And his time in White House administrations seemed to be drawing to an end as a "dump Schlesinger" movement appeared in 1979.

"[Schlesinger] is the kind of presidential appointee who has a highly resistible appeal to the pragmatic politicians on Capitol Hill, who must measure what should be done against the practicalities of what can be done," wrote Jack Anderson in a unfavorable column in The Washington Post in 1979.

After Carter faced continued criticism and Schlesinger alienated supporters, Carter fired Schlesinger along with the rest of his cabinet later in the year.

Looking Backwards

Schlesinger's connection with Harvard did not end after he received his Ph.D. He has served as an Overseer for the University and remained involved in alumni affairs.

While Schlesinger found this position "interesting," he does not see Harvard as the perfect institution--he recently criticized the administration's stance on ROTC.

"To penalize a handful of undergraduates who choose to join ROTC--as a way of expressing the faculty's frustration in not being able to determine national policy--strikes me as ignoble; it will not go down as Harvard's finest hour," he wrote in 1995.

Schlesinger seemed to feel this mistaken position of the faculty concerning ROTC was symptomatic of Harvard's disconnection with the real world.

"I fear that Harvard (along with other universities) is increasingly divorced from the beliefs and concerns of the American society in which she is placed and in whose history she has played so distinguished a role," he added.

If Schlesinger seems to disapprove of today's Harvard, he feels quite differently about the Harvard of 1950. He fondly remembers his days at Harvard and the lessons that he learned while he was there.

"I am struck by how large a role the Harvard of our college years played in shaping the standards and instinctive responses that have guided (and protected) me throughout the years," Schlesinger wrote in 1995.

An Unassuming Role

While Harvard played an instrumental role in shaping Schlesinger's political and moral consciousness, it was only in the public sphere he was able to practice what he preached.

And while he was not a high-profile figure and had no desire to be a political celebrity, he did not shy away from actively voicing his beliefs, even at personal expense.