Monday, Mar. 20, 1978
DIED. Walter Muir Whitehill, 72, historian and man of letters who became known as "Mr. Boston" for his successful crusade to preserve some of the landmarks of his city; of pneumonia; in Boston. A pragmatist who fought to "save what is good for practical use as places to live in and work in," Whitehill played a large part in restoring Boston's 19th century Quincy Marketplace and making it into a thriving new commercial center.
DIED. Sir Roy Harrod, 78, noted English economist, and disciple and definitive biographer (in 1951) of John Maynard Keynes; in Holt, Norfolk, England. A student of Keynes' at Cambridge, Harrod forged a brilliant career that encompassed teaching at Oxford University from 1921 to 1967 and serving on Sir Winston Churchill's private staff during World War II. He was knighted in 1959.
DIED. Micheal Mac Liammoir, 78, renowned Irish actor, designer and playwright; of a pulmonary embolism; in Dublin. Blessed with what he called a "godawful gift of gab" and a deep streak of talent, Mac Liammoir designed and appeared in 300 productions at Dublin's Gate, a famed small innovative theater he helped establish in 1928. In the 1960s he popularized the one-man show by giving, on four continents, marvelous solo recitations of passages he had culled from Oscar Wilde, an act he called The Importance of Being Oscar, and from centuries of Irish literature (I Must Be Talking to My Friends).
DIED. Henry Merritt Wriston, 88, president of Brown University (1937-55) and blue-ribbon Government panelist; in Manhattan. At Brown, Wriston established a reputation as an iconoclast, de-emphasizing survey courses and attracting top professors and freeing them of administrative tasks. Describing himself as "a perpetually dissatisfied Republican," Wriston defended academic freedom from assaults by the House Un-American Activities Committee as vigorously as he opposed the New Deal. In 1954 he headed John Foster Dulles' committee for the reorganization of the diplomatic service, and in 1960 he directed the President's Commission on National Goals, an ambitious, wide-ranging study that outlined objectives in economics, foreign policy, the arts and science, government and welfare.
DIED. William L. McKnight, 90, pioneer advocate of industrial research and development who built and diversified a debt-ridden sandpaper concern into the $4 billion 3M Co.; in Miami Beach. McKnight left his family's South Dakota farm at 18 to become a bookkeeper's assistant in the Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co. at $11.55 a week. He rose quietly to become president of the company at 41, then chairman of the board until he retired at 78.
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