Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., eminent public thinker, dies at 89

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and Kennedy insider who helped define mainstream liberalism during the Cold War and remained an eminent public thinker into the 21st century, has died, his son said. He was 89.

Photo: Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., eminent public thinker, dies at 89

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., eminent public thinker, dies at 89

Schlesinger suffered a heart attack while dining out with family members Wednesday night in Manhattan, Stephen Schlesinger said. He was taken to New York Downtown Hospital, where he died.

Among the most famous historians of his time, Schlesinger was widely respected as learned and readable, with a panoramic vision of American culture and politics. He received a National Book Award for "Robert Kennedy and His Times" and both a National Book Award and a Pulitzer for "A Thousand Days," his memoir/chronicle of President John F. Kennedy's administration. He also won a Pulitzer, in 1946, for "The Age of Jackson," his landmark chronicle of Andrew Jackson's administration.

With his bow ties and horn-rimmed glasses, Schlesinger seemed the very image of a reserved, tweedy scholar. But he was an assured member of the so-called Eastern elite.

He was a longtime confidant of the Kennedys, a fellow Harvard man who served in President Kennedy's administration and was often criticized for idealizing the family, especially for not mentioning the president's extramarital affairs.

"At no point in my experience did his preoccupation with women - apart from (his daughter) Caroline crawling around the Oval Office - interfere with his conduct of the public business," Schlesinger later wrote.

Liberalism declined in his lifetime to the point where politicians feared using the word, but Schlesinger's opinions remained liberal, and influential, whether old ones on the "imperial presidency," or newer ones on the Iraq war. For both historians and Democratic officials, he was a kind of professor emeritus, valued for his professional knowledge and for his personal past.

A native of Columbus, Ohio, and the son of a prominent historian, he was born Arthur Bancroft Schlesinger, Jr., but later gave himself his father's middle name, Meier. Family friends included James Thurber, historian Charles A. Beard and future Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter.

"My childhood was, in recollection, a generally sunny time," Schlesinger wrote in "A Life in the Twentieth Century," published in 2000. "I don't remember (or have repressed?) bad moments. There was an innocence about growing up in those days."

Schlesinger attended Phillips Exeter Academy and in 1938 graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University. During World War II, Schlesinger drafted some statements for President Franklin D. Roosevelt and served as an intelligence analyst for the Office of Strategic Services, a forerunner to the CIA.

Schlesinger emerged as a historian with "The Age of Jackson." Published in 1945, when he was just 27, the book offered a new, class-based interpretation of President Andrew Jackson's administration, destroying the old myth that the country was once an egalitarian paradise.

"The Age of Jackson" remained a major text despite eventual criticism - even by Schlesinger - for overlooking Jackson's appeasement of slavery and his harsh treatment of Indians. Jackson served as president from 1829 to 1837.

Like many liberals of the 1940s, Schlesinger was also trying to reconcile support of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal economic relief programs to the start of the Cold War. He responded by condemning both the far right and the far left, any system that denied the "perpetual tension" of a dynamic democracy. "World without conflict is the world of fantasy," he wrote in "The Age of Jackson."

In 1946, Schlesinger helped found Americans for Democratic Action, a leading organization of anti-communist liberals. Three years later, he published the influential "The Vital Center," whichadvocated a liberal domestic policy and anti-communist foreign policy. The book's title became a common political phrase, still in use decades later, and Schlesinger's call for defending American ideals abroad was endlessly revived as Democrats debated U.S. involvement in countries from Bosnia to Iraq.

In the 1950s, Schlesinger became increasingly involved in electoral politics, supporting Adlai Stevenson, the erudite Illinois governor and two-time loser to Dwight Eisenhower for the presidency. In 1960, the historian switched his loyalty to Kennedy, even as he acknowledged that Stevenson was a "much richer, more thoughtful, more creative person."

Liberals were wary of Kennedy, but Schlesinger, tired of Stevenson's dreamy detachment, was drawn to Kennedy's "cool, measured, intelligent concern." Over time, he came to embody Schlesinger's ideal for a head of state: charismatic but not dogmatic; progressive yet practical; a realist, he once observed, brilliantly disguised as a romantic.

Kennedy appointed Schlesinger as a special assistant, an unofficial "court philosopher" of symbolic, if not practical power. The high-minded historian was soon trapped in the tangle of superpower politics: the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, the disastrous attempt to overthrow Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Schlesinger was opposed to the plan, he later wrote, but acknowledged helping the administration suppress a pre-invasion story by The New Republic that correctly reported the U.S. was training Cuban mercenaries. Had the press not cooperated, it might "have spared the country a disaster," a regretful Schlesinger recalled.

His time in government was brief. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, and the historian soon left the administration of his successor, Lyndon Johnson. ("With Kennedy gone, it was no longer exhilarating," Schlesinger explained). Schlesinger then supported Robert Kennedy's brief, tragic 1968 campaign. Robert Kennedy, the president's brother, had been the attorney general and was running for the presidency, the AP reports.

"What sort of people are we, we Americans?" Schlesinger asked at a commencement speech given the day after Kennedy's fatal shooting. "We are today the most frightening people on this planet. ... We must uncover the roots of hatred and violence, and, through self-knowledge, move toward self-control."

Being a liberal, Schlesinger once observed, means regarding man as "neither brute nor angel." Whether discussing the Kennedys, Vietnam or the power of the presidency, Schlesinger sought moderation, the middle course. He blamed the Vietnam War on the moral extremism of the right and left and worried that the executive branch had become "imperial," calling for a "strong presidency within the Constitution." He saw American history itself as a continuing "cycle" between liberal and conservative power, the AP reports.

In 1998, Schlesinger opposed Republican-led attempts to have President Bill Clinton removed from office, and he later criticized President George W. Bush for his doctrine of "preventive war," saying "I think the whole notion of America as the world's judge, jury and executioner is a tragically mistaken notion."

Schlesinger said that his involvement in politics had the unfortunate effect of keeping him from writing more books. His works included "The Age of Roosevelt," an acclaimed series about FDR that he abandoned after joining the Kennedy administration but attempted to revive late in life; and "The Disuniting of America," a controversial text which warned a "cult of ethnicity" could reduce the country to isolated factions. To the amusement of President Kennedy, Schlesinger also wrote film criticism for Vogue and other publications.

Schlesinger had six children - four from his first marriage, to the author Marian Cannon, and two from his second, to Alexandra Emmet.