Max Millikan

Max Franklin Millikan (December 12, 1913 – December 14, 1969) was an American economist, Professor of Economics at MIT, assistant director of the Office of Research and Reports at the CIA, and director of the MIT Center for International Studies. Millikan was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. He was a son of the physicist Robert Millikan. He started his studies at the California Institute of Technology from 1931 to 1933, and then moved to Yale University, where he obtained his BS in physics in 1935. In the year 1935–36, he was student at Cambridge University. Back at Yale in 1941, he obtained his PhD in economics. In 1938, Millikan had started his academic career as instructor in economics at Yale University. In 1941, he was appointed assistant professor, and in 1942 Research Associate. In 1942, he joined the US Office of Price Administration as Senior Business Specialist, and the War Shipping Administration as Principal Economist, where he was assistant director of the Division of Ship Requirements from 1944 to 1946. In 1946, he joined the United States Department of State as Chief Economist in the Intelligence Bureau Division, Research for Europe. In 1947, he served in the President's Commission on Foreign Aid as Assistant Executive Secretary, and was consultant to the United States House of Representatives. In 1949, he returned to the academic world to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), where he was appointed associate professor. In the year 1951–52, he took a year leave to serve as assistant director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Upon his he return at MIT, he was appointed Professor of Economics, where he served until his death in 1969. From 1952 to 1969, he was also Director of the MIT Center for International Studies, from 1956 to 1969 he was President of the World Peace Foundation. In 1954, Millikan and Walt Whitman Rostow made important recommendations to President Dwight Eisenhower regarding US foreign aid for development.