Clifton R. Wharton, Jr., is an economist who has had distinguished careers in foreign economic development, higher education, and business. From 1987 to 1993 he was chairman and chief executive officer of Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association and the College Retirement Equities Fund (IIAA-CREF), the largest pension fund in the world with assets of $160 billion.
He has also served as president of Michigan State University from 1970 to 1978, and as Chancellor of the State University of New York System from 1978 to 1987, a system comprising 64 colleges and universities with an enrollment of 380,000 students. Prior to this, he spent 22 years working in foreign economic and agricultural development in Latin America (1948 to 1957) and Southeast Asia (1958 to 1970) for the Rockefeller family philanthropic interests. His teaching and research covered a wide range from the economics of smallholder agriculture to international trade. He is the author of three books and numerous articles. Many of today's leaders in government, business and academe in Southeast Asia are his former students, grantees, and colleagues.
Long active in U.S. foreign policy, Wharton has held appointments under six Presidents. In 1993 he served as President Clinton's Deputy Secretary of State, U.S. Department of State. He served as a member of the Advisory Panel on East Asia and the Pacific of the U.S. Department of State from 1966-1969. Dr. Wharton was a member of the Presidential Task Force on Agriculture in Vietnam in 1966, of Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller's Presidential Mission to Latin America in 1969 and President Carter's Commission on World Hunger from 1978 to 1980. From 1976 to 1983 he served as chairman of the Board for International Food and Agricultural Development of the State Department's AID program appointed by Presidents Ford and Carter. In 1983, he was co-chairman of the Commission on Security and Economic Assistance, U.S. Department of State. President Bush appointed him to the Advisory Commission on Trade Policy and Negotiations in 1991. He was the recipient of the 1977 Joseph C. Wilson Award for achievement and promise in international affairs and in 1983 he received the President's Award on World Hunger.
Wharton was a trustee (1970-87) and chairman (1982-87) of the Rockefeller Foundation and former director of Equitable Life, Time, PBS, Federated Department Stores, and Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He is currently a director of the Ford Motor Company, the New York Stock Exchange, Harcourt General, and Tenneco Inc. He is a former trustee of the Council on Foreign Relations, Inc., the Foreign Policy Association, The Aspen Institute, the Asia Society, and the Museum of Modern Art. He is a current trustee of the Overseas Development Council, the SUNY Rockefeller Institute of Government, the American Assembly, Winrock International, the Clark Foundation, and was elected to the TIAA-CREF Board of Overseers. He has won numerous awards and has been honored with 56 honorary degrees.
The son of a career diplomat, Wharton was born in Boston and spent six years of his childhood in the Canary Islands, Spain. He has received a bachelor's degree in history from Harvard in 1947, a masters degree in International Affairs in 1948 from Johns Hopkins, and a masters degree and a doctorate in economics in 1956 and 1958 from the University of Chicago.