William Joseph Baroody

Background

He was born on January 29, 1916, in Manchester, New Hampshire, the son of Joseph Assad Baroody, an immigrant Lebanese stonecutter, and Helen Hasney.

Education

After attending local Catholic schools, Baroody entered St. Anselm's College in Manchester. Working in grocery stores to support his family, Baroody received a B. A. from St. Anselm's in 1936 and did graduate work at the University of New Hampshire in the 1937-1938 academic year and at American University in 1938.

Career

From 1937 to 1940, Baroody was an assistant statistician at the New Hampshire Unemployment Compensation Agency; he was supervisor of the fiscal research and legislative planning sections of the agency from 1941 to 1944. He also served as research associate of the New Hampshire Legislative Commission on Disability Benefits from 1940 to 1944 and as director of the statistics division, New Hampshire War Finance Committee, in 1943 and 1944. Baroody enlisted in the Naval Reserve and served as a lieutenant on the escort carrier Mission Bay in 1944 and 1945. At the Veterans Administration in Washington, D. C. , he was chief of the research and statistics division, readjustment allowance service, from 1946 to 1949. He served next in the United States Chamber of Commerce, from 1950 to 1953, as executive secretary of the committee on economic security and associate editor of American Economic Security.

In 1954, Baroody became executive vicepresident of the American Enterprise Association. This small public policy research organization had been founded by Lewis Herold Brown in 1943, but when Baroody joined, it was only marginally engaged in debating the issues confronting American society. As a first-generation American, Baroody saw the United States as a land of opportunity; throughout his life he maintained that "competition of ideas is fundamental to a free society. " He felt the ideas of the New Deal, such as the growth of governmental regulation and bureaucracy and the centralization of power in Washington, deserved to be challenged and enlisted leading scholars who agreed, including Milton Friedman, Roscoe Pound, Gottfried Haberler, Paul W. McCracken, and Glenn Campbell, who was research director of the organization (1954 - 1960) before going to the Hoover Institution.

In 1962, Baroody became president of the association and changed its name to the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI). Patient and low-keyed, he had a talent for mixing people and ideas. As William F. Buckley, Jr. , wrote, "he combined a gentleness of manner with a resolution of purpose and a conciliator's good nature. " As head of AEI, Baroody helped to bring conservative ideas into the national public policy debate and helped achieve a new level of acceptance for views that had not previously been taken seriously by government and the media.

He believed that the debate on the legitimacy of the free enterprise system was about more than economics, and as a result, AEI paid more attention to religious thought and political theory than did other research centers concerned with preserving a free market economy. Even those who did not share his viewpoint were often impressed by the high quality of research done at AEI, which grew in size and influence under Baroody's leadership, with a budget of $8 million and some 125 staff members.

In 1977 former president Gerald R. Ford became a distinguished fellow at AEI and participated in its seminars and lectures at many universities. Melvin Laird, Bryce Harlow, Arthur Burns, Herbert Stein, Jeane Kirkpatrick, and Ben Wattenberg were among those associated with Baroody's institute.

Baroody was a founder of Georgetown University's Center for Strategic and International Studies, a member of the board of overseers at the Hoover Institution from 1960 to 1980, and chairman of the board of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars from 1972 to 1979. In 1978, Baroody was succeeded as president of AEI by his son William J. Baroody, Jr. , and became chairman of AEI's development committee, a post he retained until his death. A decade before the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, the Cold War appeared far from over and its outcome uncertain. Baroody believed that shifts in the political balance of power should be irrelevant in determining one's conduct.

While many scholars and journalists were writing in the 1970's about American decline, Baroody held the opposite view. Nothing the importance of AEI in 1980, liberal historian James MacGregor Burns observed that victory in the presidential election had gone to conservatives because of their successful effort "to build their intellectual case and to use invigorated and broadened conservative ideas as vehicles to political power. " Former president Gerald R. Ford said, in November 1980, "If the way is well prepared to offer a new vision for this country, no one in the postwar history of the United States deserves more credit than does Bill Baroody. "

Achievements

• Baroody's institute helped create an intellectual climate for political changes that would take place during the 1980's in the United States and in other parts of the world, especially Eastern Europe.

Works

More photos

• book

  • William J. Baroody, Sr: Recipient of the 1980 Boyer Award (The Francis Boyer lectures on public policy)
  • Education: More than mere knowledge (AEI reprint)

Religion

A devout member of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, Baroody held family values and religion to be particularly important issues and made them the focus of studies at his institute.

Politics

Of diverse political affiliations, most AEI scholars strongly supported free markets and firmly opposed Communism. They also favored market or voluntary approaches to policy issues instead of the use of government power. Journalists sometimes called AEI a conservative counterpart of the liberal Brookings Institution.

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• Speaking about his father in 1980, William J. Baroody, Jr. , said, "What he taught us to do was to compete not just because we have to win, because he knew we might not. "
  
  Ronald Reagan said in a speech at AEI, "One of Bill Baroody's greatest accomplishments was in building an institution that said, 'Here is a place where you can develop your ideas, ' that said to others, 'Here is a place you can turn to for advice, ' that said to all of us who were concerned about our country's future, 'You are not alone. '"

Connections

On October 15, 1935, he married Nabeeha Marion Ashooh; they had seven children.

Father:

Joseph Assad Baroody

Mother:

Helen Hasney

Wife:

Nabeeha Marion Ashooh