A Harvard professor who was one of the foremost philosophers of the 20th century, Willard van Orman Quine died Dec. 25. He was 92.

Quine led the second golden age of the Harvard philosophy department along with John Rawls, the political theorist, and philosophers Stanley Cavell and Hillary Putnam, according to Warren Goldfarb, Pearson professor of modern mathematics and mathematical logic.

Quine came to Harvard to earn his Ph.D. in philosophy and stayed for the rest of his career, aside from a stint as a Navy cryptographer during World War II and his travels around the globe. He was a member of Harvard's prestigious Society of Fellows. He retired from teaching in 1978.

During the turmoil of 1969, Quine was a conservative voice on the Faculty. Of the aftermath of the turmoil, he wrote in his autobiography: "Standards sank in various departments...The loss in rapport and fellow feeling, as well as in academic standards, was not soon to be made up."

Herbert E. Robbins `35

The co-author of a mathematics book designed for the general population, which won wide praise including from Albert Einstein, Herbert E. Robbins '35 died Feb. 12 of cancer. He was 86.

The book, entitled "What is Mathematics?" covered a broad range of advanced mathematical topics in language comprehensible to non-mathematicians. The book was written with Richard Courant.

Robbins was also well known among mathematicians for his work in the field of statistics. His studies focused on improving the accuracy of predications.

Robbins earned his bachelors, masters and doctoral degree from Harvard. He served as a professor at New York University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Columbia University, and Rutgers University. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Kermit Roosevelt `37

The grandson of a president and an operative in the CIA, Kermit Roosevelt `37 died June 8, 2000. He was 84.

Kermit Roosevelt was the grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt, class of 1880 and a distant cousin of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, class of 1903.

However, Kermit Roosevelt's fame did not come through electoral politics, but through clandestine activities. As CIA chief in the Middle East in the 1950s, Kermit Roosevelt organized a successful coup to bring Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi to power in Iran and remove Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh.