Marina von Neumann Whitman, RIP

Economist Marina von Neumann Whitman died, at age 90, on May 20 this year. She was one of my 3 bosses when I was a summer intern at the Council of Economic Advisers in the summer of 1973. (I think of this as the “Watergate summer” because the hearings of the Watergate Committee were conducted that summer. Every morning, as I rode my bicycle down Capitol Hill to work in the Old Executive Office Building, I saw people lined up at one of the Senate buildings to watch the committee, chaired by North Carolina Democratic Senator Sam Ervin.) My other 2 bosses were chairman Herb Stein and member Gary L. Seevers.

I started working in early June under Bob Tollison. He left at the end of June and had enough confidence in my ability that he recommended to Herb that Herb let me serve as an acting senior economist for the approximately 5 or 6 weeks before his replacement, Alan Pulsifer, arrived. Surprisingly, even though I had been a little brash and even rude in a meeting with Herb the day before, Herb said yes. I think Herb had the perspective I now have about young people: they can do stupid, thoughtless things but you should not put too much weight on those things if you’ve seen other good evidence of performance.

But I’m getting away from the story. I reported to Marina, the other member, on only a few issues. I attended one major meeting with her and other people from other agencies who were at her rank, roughly the rank of undersecretary. Although I inappropriately spoke up to state the CEA’s position on something before she did, Marina didn’t chide me.

I have two stories about Marina. Here’s the first, which is really about Herb Stein. It’s from Chapter 12 of my 2001 book, The Joy of Freedom: An Economist’s Odyssey. The chapter is titled “A Tour of Washington.”

Herb would have made a first-rate comedian—his son, Ben Stein of Comedy Central fame, comes by it honestly. Near the end of the summer, Marina von Neumann Whitman (the daughter of the famous mathematician John von Neumann), one of the members of the Council, was set to leave, so there was a big party for her over at the New Executive Office Building, attended by various muck-a-mucks, including Arthur Burns, then chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, and George Shultz, secretary of the treasury, both economists who defended price controls knowing full well that they would hurt the economy. That summer, the Watergate hearings were going at full tilt, and it had been revealed just weeks before that (a) many conversations in the White House had been taped and (b) the ones the Watergate committee wanted were missing. So, at one point in the celebration, Herb announced that “the missing White House tapes” had been found and that he wanted to play an excerpt. He turned on the tape recorder and what followed was a skit, scripted by Herb, in which Herb did his own voice, a secretary named Margaret Snyder did Marina’s voice, and the other member of the Council, Gary Seevers, did Nixon’s voice. One segment of that skit still stands out in my memory:

Nixon: Herb, inflation is rising again. What should we do?

Stein: Let me ask your new member, Marina. Marina, what should we do?

Marina: Impose price controls.

Nixon: But we already have price controls.

Marina: Then abolish price controls.

People, including Burns and Shultz, laughed uproariously. I laughed too. It was pretty funny, in isolation.

I go on in the book to address my upset about the broader issue of price controls, but I want to stick to this being a post on Marina, not on Herb Stein or price controls.

Fast forward to September 1980, the last time I saw and talked to Marina. I told the story at length here. I was trying to talk my way on to a panel on the presidential candidates’ economic policies.

This is the part I want to highlight, because Marina did me a big favor.

Then I called the president of the AEA, William Baumol, and asked him if I could be on the panel. “That’s not my call,” he answered. “That’s up to Leonard Silk, who put the panel together and is chairing the session.” “When I talk to Leonard Silk, may I tell him that this has your blessing?” He answered yes.

So I wandered around the convention hall and found Marina von Neumann Whitman, one of my former bosses at Nixon’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) when she was a member of the CEA, and, coincidentally, she was talking to Leonard Silk. So I went up to them, said hi, and introduced myself to Leonard. Just then, in another lucky coincidence, Hendrik Houthakker came along. He had been a member of the CEA when Marina was a senior staff economist.

I got to the point quickly. I pointed out that Hendrik was representing John Anderson, whom everyone knew had no chance of winning the election. Therefore, I said, I thought it reasonable that Clark be represented and I had got permission from the Clark campaign to represent him. “I’m so sorry,” said Leonard, “but this is not my call. Bill Baumol is the program organizer and it’s up to him.” “Good,” I said, “because I talked to him an hour ago, he said he favors it, and that’s it actually up to you.”

Leonard was nonplussed, but only for a few seconds. “The problem is,” he said, “that we have limited time and each person will get only 15 minutes or so. There won’t be time for you.” “I understand,” I said, “so how about this? Give me 7 minutes and I promise to stick to it.” I looked at Hendrik, pleading with my eyes for his support. He didn’t give it directly, but didn’t object. Finally, Marina said, “Come on, Leonard. Be a sport.” “OK,” said Leonard.