Richard Neustadt - Personal

Personal

Neustadt later founded the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, where he taught as a popular professor for more than two decades, officially retiring in 1989, but continuing to teach there for years thereafter. Neustadt also served as the first director of the Harvard Institute of Politics (IOP), which was founded as "a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy that engages young people in politics and public service."

His first wife, Bertha Cummings "Bert" Neustadt, died in 1984; in 1987, he married British politician Shirley Williams, who also served on the faculty at the Kennedy School of Government as Professor of Electoral Politics. Neustadt was also a recipient of the 1988 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order, co-authored with Ernest May.

After his retirement he served as an advisor to Bill Clinton and as Chairman of the Presidential Debates Commission.

One of Neustadt's closest students was a young Al Gore. Gore's interest in politics was reignited by a junior seminar taught by Neustadt in 1968 on the presidency. In the course, Gore role-played John F. Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Gore arranged to have private tutorials with Neustadt during his senior year, meeting with him two hours weekly.