Harold Nathan Graves Jr. ’35

Harold died Nov. 13, 2002, at his home outside Washington, D.C.

His Princeton years, he said, were some of the happiest in his life. But they and the year he spent getting a master's from Columbia's journalism school in 1936 scarcely prepared him for the career that followed. First came three years at the Washington bureau of Pathfinder, a weekly news magazine. Then he was recruited to monitor radio broadcasts from Japan and Europe, followed by a job for the Office of Strategic Services, which posted him to Ceylon, India, and Thailand to conduct covert operations against Japan.

Post-World War II, Harold tried the news business again. But then came a call from the World Bank, and he spent the next 25 years there in jobs ranging from public relations director to executive secretary for international agricultural research. The latter involved organizing foundations, governments, and financial institutions to improve crop development and farming in poor tropical and subtropical nations.

After retiring from the World Bank in 1975, he consulted for the Ford and Rockefeller foundations, and for the Cholera Research Centre of Bangladesh. Only in 1981 was he able to concentrate on less cosmic problems, such as his badly neglected golf game.

Survivors include Judy, his wife of 65 years, and their sons, Stephen, Thomas, and Michael Graves.

The Class of 1935