Robert Louis Slighton ’53

Bob died June 24, 2018, in Princeton after a short battle with cancer.

He was born in Jefferson City, Mo., and came to Princeton from Maplewood-Richmond Heights High School. At Princeton he majored in the School of Public and International Affairs and was a member of Quadrangle Club.

After brief military service at Camp Chaffee, Ark., he continued his education at Johns Hopkins, where he received a doctorate in political economics. This was followed by a fellowship at the Brookings Institution. After serving as an assistant professor of economics at Stanford University, Bob was a senior research economist at the RAND Corp. He then moved to Washington, D.C., where he was national intelligence officer for economics and energy under the director of central intelligence and then deputy assistant secretary for research and planning in the office of the assistant secretary at the Department of Treasury in the Gerald Ford administration.

After his Washington years he came back to live in Princeton while serving for almost 20 years as chief international economist at Chase Manhattan Bank. Business and pleasure provided ample opportunities to travel and to experience diverse cuisines that helped inform his lifelong interest in cooking. For 10 years, he held a series of cooking classes for a small group of friends.

Bob is survived by his wife of 65 years, Margaret; children Catherine ’81 and Eric ’83; and seven grandchildren.