Lasting Memories

Alexander L. George
1920-Aug. 16, 2006
Seattle, Washintgon

Alexander L. George, Stanford University professor emeritus of international relations, died Aug. 16 at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle, following a stroke. He was 86.

"Many people consider Alex George to be the greatest scholar of international relations of his generation," said Dr. David Hamburg, president emeritus of the Carnegie Corporation in New York and a former chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford.

He was a professor of political science at Stanford from 1968 to 1990. He had been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in 1957, where he met Hamburg. The center is adjacent to the campus on university lands.

He was among the first to lead behavioral scientists into studying the "very painful and dangerous issues" of nuclear crisis management during the Cold War and to carry that knowledge directly to policy leaders, Hamburg said. He "focused a great deal of attention on reducing nuclear danger," Hamburg added. "I regard him as a truly great scholar and human being."

He was born in Chicago in 1920 and earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Chicago, followed by a doctorate degree in political science in 1958, also from the University of Chicago.

He was a research analyst for the Federal Communications Commission from 1942 to 1944 and then served as a civil-affairs officer in Germany in 1945. He then worked at the RAND Corporation from 1948 to 1968, serving as the head of its social service department.

He is the author of "Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House" (1956), which he co-wrote with his wife, Juliette L. George. The journal Political Psychology devoted an issue in 1994 to examining and honoring his work.

After retiring from teaching at Stanford, he was a distinguished fellow at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C.

He was awarded the Bancroft Prize for American History and Diplomacy in 1975 for a book he co-authored, "Deterrence in American Foreign Policy."

In addition to his wife, Juliette, he is survived by a daughter, Mary L. Douglas of Edmonds, Wash.; a son, Lee L. George of Soquel, Calif.; and two grandchildren..