Robert R. Barker

Robert R. Barker ’36, a Wall Street executive who served two terms as president of the Board of Overseers and whose name graces the Barker Center for the Humanities, died Nov. 8 at a hospice in Stamford, Conn. He was 87.

Together with his wife Elizabeth, Barker funded more than half of the $25 million Barker Center project.

Barker served as an overseer for six years and was president of the board for two. He was also a director of the Harvard Management Company and a leading member of the Committee on University Resources.

He raised money tirelessly—for the Harvard College Fund, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the University Arts Museums and various academic departments.

“He felt that he didn’t just go to Harvard for four years—he went for life,” said Sidney R. Knafel ’52, who served with Barker on a gifts committee in New York.

Barker was born in Brookline and raised in Argentina and Switzerland. He graduated from the College magna cum laude.

Barker was a Wall Street executive and an expert on educational endowments. He worked for J. P. Morgan in New York, later becoming a partner with William A. M. Burden & Co. before going on to found Barker Lee and Co.

Clarence Douglas Dillon

Clarence Douglas Dillon ’31, a longtime ambassador and diplomat who during the Cuban missile crisis served as one of a handful of top White House advisors deciding the fate of the world, died Jan. 10 in New York City. He was 93.

A two-term member of Harvard’s Board of Overseers, Dillon was described as “one of Harvard’s most distinguished graduates of the 20th century” by Dillon Professor of Government and former Kennedy School of Government Dean Graham T. Allison.

Dillon served as President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s undersecretary of state for economic affairs for two years and ambassador to France for six.

He was then selected by President John F. Kennedy ’40 to be Secretary of the Treasury. There he played a large part in the trade expansion of the 1960s by introducing legislation to increase exports and control inflation, and spearheaded a large series of tax cuts aimed to stoke economic growth.

One of Dillon’s most crucial roles in public service, however, had nothing to do with the United States economy. He was picked by Kennedy to be a member of a small council to determine the United States’ response to the Cuban missile crisis, according to Allison.

“He was included in this little circle of 13 people who were thinking about blowing up the world,” Allison said.