Adlai Stevenson Receives Honorary Degree; Plaza, Betancourt, Tuttle, Aiken Cited Too

Adlai E. Stevenson, America's Ambassador to the United Nations, received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from President Pusey this morning at the University's 314th Commencement.

Two Latin American statesmen, Romulo Betancourt, former president of Venezuela, and Galo Plaza Lasso, former president of Ecuador, also received honorary LL.D's.

Also honored with the doctor of laws degree were David E. Bell, formerly professor of Economics and now foreign aid administrator; Gaylord P. Harnwell, president of the University of Pennsylvania; Ridley Watts, '23, National Chairman of the Program for Harvard Medicine; and George D. Woods, president of the World Bank.

Howard H. Aiken, professor of applied mathematics, Emeritus, received a Doctor of Science degree for his work in helping to develop the computer. Marston Morse, a pioneer in the mathematical field of variational theory in the large, also received a Doctor of Science degree.

Elbert P. Tuttle, chief judge of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, who has upheld civil rights in his southern district, received another honorary LL.D.

Also honored were John C. Bennett, president of Union Theological Seminary and a leader of the ecumenical movement (Doctor of Divinity); and Thomas J. Wilson, director of the Harvard University Press (Doctor of Humane Letters).

Pusey's citation for Stevenson called the twice-defeated Presidential candidate "generous spirit, instant spokesman for freedom in the councils of the world; his intelligence and ready wit have informed and enlivened the political experience of a generation."

Betancourt became president of Venezuela in 1945, was exiled by the regime of Marcos Perez Jimenez, and then served as Venezuela's elected president from 1959 to 1964 before stepping down. His citation called him "an intrepid statesman who has demonstrated to the Americas the vitality of democracy."

Plaza, twice president of Ecuador and later U.N. mediator for Cyprus, was called an "able field general for freedom."

A public servant-turned-educator who turned public servant again, Bell was the third man selected for President-elect John Kennedy's government. He came to Washington as Director for the Budget Bureau and became foreign aid administrator in 1962. The citation called him "an able, selfless public servant upon whose kind depends the health of our democracy."

Judge Tuttle, chief judge of Atlanta's Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, has handed down decisions of the utmost importance for civil rights in the South. He was one of three judges who upheld the public accommodations section of the civil rights act of 1964 in its first court test.

Woods, a former chairman of the board of the First Boston Corporation, has been active in the World Bank and its affiliate, the International Development Association, since 1961. His citation called him "an astute financier who seks to underwrite peace by nurturing health in developing nations.

Aiken developed the Mark I, the forerunner of today's computers, while at Harvard; he worked on later models in the "Mark" series and organized the Harvard Computation Laboratories.

Harnwell helped invent sonar while a professor of physics at Pennsylvania.

Bennett, the first holder of the Reinhold Niebuhr Professorship of Social Ethics at Union, is co-chairman of the editorial board of Christianity and Crisis. In 1960, he defended John Kennedy against the charges of his fellow Protestants who felt that Kennedy's Catholicism would hamper his conduct in office.

Watts, a New York textile merchant who retired from his firm in 1958 to run the multi-million dollar Program for Harvard Medicine, was cited for his "long-time concern for medicine and health."

Wilson, director of the Franklin book program for underdeveloped countries, was called a "sympathetic and imaginative disseminator of the achievements of scholarship; sapient leader of a fine university press."