Meyer, Albert J. 1919-1983

MEYER, AVANTAGGIO

Posted By: Sharyl Ferrall
Date: 5/2/2006 at 05:44:21

Prof. Albert J. Meyer, 64, of Cambridge, a Harvard faculty member for 28 years and associate director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, died of leukemia yesterday morning in Brigham and Women's Hospital.

A member of the faculty of public administration, he specialized in problems of the Middle East and North Africa.

In the early 1960s, Prof. Meyer lived in North Africa on a research leave from Harvard and in 1962 headed a special US economic mission to Saudi Arabia.

In 1966 and 1967, he was on leave as a Fulbright-Hays visiting scholar in the Middle East, and was visiting professor of economics at American University in Beirut. He took a third research leave in 1974 and 1975 to study in London and the Middle East.

Born in Hawarden, Iowa, in 1919, he grew up there and in Glendale, Calif., and earned degrees in history and economics from the University of California at Los Angeles. He also holds an honorary degree from Harvard.

In World War II, he served in the Navy in the Pacific, and was discharged as a lieutenant junior grade.

He received his doctoral degree at Johns Hopkins University in 1947.

In 1950, Prof. Meyer became the first director of the United Nation's Refugee program in the Gaza strip. He came to Harvard in 1955.

Prof. Meyer was appointed to the Center for Middle Eastern Studies in 1964.

He wrote two books, "Middle Eastern Capitalism" in 1959 and "The Economy of Cyprus" in 1962 and many articles.

Prof. Meyer was a trustee of the Rhinelander Foundation; the Near East Foundation, and the American Friends of the Middle East, now called AMIDEAST. He also was a member of the New York Council for Foreign Relations.

Prof. Meyer was a director of the Industrial Bank of Japan Trust Co. of New York and chairman of Kensington Investment Assn. of Philadelphia.

He leaves his wife of 33 years, Anne (Avantaggio) of Cambridge; a daughter, Barbara Meyer of Victoria, Texas, and two sons, Peter Meyer of London and Stephen Meyer of Houston.

A memorial service will be held Thursday at 2:30 p.m. in Christ Church, Garden street, Cambridge. Burial will be private.

-Boston Globe, November 1, 1983