Georgetown Professor Theodore Geiger, 90
Theodore "Ted" Geiger, 90, a retired official with what is now the National Policy Association think tank and a Georgetown University professor emeritus of intersocietal relations, died Feb. 10 at a hospital in Evanston, Ill., after a stroke.
Working for the U.S. government, Dr. Geiger played early roles in European economic and political revitalization after World War II. At a public policy research organization and in academia, he continued to observe American foreign policy interventions and their consequences with changing attitudes abroad.
He explored the sense of historical mission in the postwar aid period and the later "self-critical tendency of American culture" that divided the United States in its policies toward Vietnam, South America and elsewhere.
In 1950, he became director of international studies at what was the National Planning Association, which encourages business and civic leaders to participate in public policy discussions. He spent three decades at the think tank, writing research papers for the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development and other political bodies and organizations.
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He was a member of the State Department's advisory committee on international investment, technology and development from 1977 to 1992.
His books included "The Conflicted Relationship: The West and the Transformation of Asia, Africa and Latin America" (1967). Nathaniel McKitterick, a former assistant to the World Bank president, wrote in The Washington Post, "Dr. Geiger breaks new ground in deepening our understanding of the complexities of Western influence on the process of change in other societies."
Starting in 1970, he taught a decade part time at Georgetown's Foreign Service School. He taught full time from 1980 to 1995, lecturing about international political structures.
Theodore Joseph Geiger was born in New York. He was 13 when his father died, and he held a series of jobs to support the family. He was a 1935 graduate of the College of the City of New York and received his doctorate in economic history from Columbia University in 1956.
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During World War II, he was a senior economist at the War Production Board and then did intelligence work in the Army.
After the war, he was part of the U.S. Mission for Economic Affairs in London and helped allocate lumber and other building materials needed in recently liberated countries.
From 1948 to 1950, he worked for the Economic Cooperation Administration and helped develop policies to create self-sustaining economies in Europe. He also wrote an early policy paper supporting European unification.
He moved to Evanston from Washington in 2001.
He was a former president and board chairman of Temple Shalom in Chevy Chase.
Survivors include his wife, Frances Moed Geiger, whom he married in 1941, of Evanston; two children, Nancy Ghiglione of Evanston and Thomas Geiger of Pleasantville, N.Y.; and five grandchildren.
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