William Yandell Elliott (1896–1979) was an American historian and a political advisor to six US presidents.

Biography

Born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, he served as an artillery battery commander in World War I. He attended Vanderbilt University, where he was a member of the group of poets and literary scholars known as the Fugitives. As a Rhodes Scholar, he attended

Balliol College, Oxford Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...

, where he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics and, among others, would meet the poet William Butler Yeats, the Indian nationalist

Krishna Menon Vengalil Krishnan Krishna Menon (3 May 1896 – 6 October 1974) was an Indian academic, politician, and non-career diplomat. He was described by some as the second most powerful man in India, after the first Prime Minister of India, Jawa ...

, and

John Marshall Harlan II John Marshall Harlan (May 20, 1899 – December 29, 1971) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1955 to 1971. Harlan is usually called John Marshall Harlan II to distinguish him ...

, a future

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court An associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States is any member of the Supreme Court of the United States other than the chief justice of the United States. The number of associate justices is eight, as set by the Judiciary Act of ...

. His dissertation ''The Pragmatic Revolt in Politics'', completed under supervision of A. D. Lindsay, proved to be influential. He was hired by Harvard President

Abbott Lawrence Lowell Abbott Lawrence Lowell (December 13, 1856 – January 6, 1943) was an American educator and legal scholar. He was President of Harvard University from 1909 to 1933. With an "aristocratic sense of mission and self-certainty," Lowell cut a large f ...

, and he was to remain at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher l ...

for the next 41 years. He became an advisor to a number of American presidents and presidential candidates, including

Al Smith Alfred Emanuel Smith (December 30, 1873 – October 4, 1944) was an American politician who served four terms as Governor of New York and was the Democratic Party's candidate for president in 1928. The son of an Irish-American mother and a Civ ...

in 1928. He was a member of Franklin Roosevelt's

Brain Trust Brain trust was a term that originally described a group of close advisers to a political candidate or incumbent; these were often academics who were prized for their expertise in particular fields. The term is most associated with the group of ad ...

in the 1930s and the 1940s and the Vice President of the

War Production Board The War Production Board (WPB) was an agency of the United States government that supervised war production during World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established it in January 1942, with Executive Order 9024. The WPB replaced the Su ...

in Charge of Civilian Requirements during World War II. He also accompanied Roosevelt to the

Yalta Conference The Yalta Conference (codenamed Argonaut), also known as the Crimea Conference, held 4–11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to discuss the pos ...

. After the war, Elliott served on the National Security Council. He was a

scriptwriter A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based. T ...

for Republican Richard Nixon's 1960 election run, but Democratic Presidents

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination i ...

and Lyndon Johnson retained him as a

US State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nat ...

advisor. He also taught at the

Harvard Extension School Harvard Extension School (HES) is the extension school of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school is one among 12 schools that grant degrees and falls under the Division of Continuing Education in the Harvard Faculty of A ...

. Elliott became dean of the Harvard Summer School, where he would establish the Harvard International Seminar, directed by his student and protégé Henry Kissinger. Many attendees went on to become heads of state or government in their respective countries, including Yigal Allon in Israel, Yasuhiro Nakasone in Japan, and Pierre Trudeau in Canada. One of his sons,

Ward Elliott Ward Elliott (August 6, 1937 – December 6, 2022) was an American political scientist who was the Burnet C. Wohlford Professor of American Political Institutions at Claremont McKenna College (CMC) in California. Elliot had been a professor at CMC ...

, was a notable political scientist. Other sons include the late Charles Elliott and David Elliott, both political scientists.

Influence

Elliott has become the recipient of recent attention, with historians Niall Ferguson and

Sean Stone Sean Christopher Stone (born December 29, 1984) is an American actor, filmmaker, and television host. Stone hosted a show on the Russian state-funded network RT America until the network was shut down in 2022 after Russia's invasion of Ukraine ...

paying close interest to Elliott's role as Kissinger's mentor.

References

External links

William Y. Elliott
by his son, Ward Elliott. See also Triumph and Tragedy: A Life in the American Century, a biography by another son, David W.P. Elliott which can be accessed at https://delliott.pressbooks.com/ source david elliott {{DEFAULTSORT:Elliott, William 20th-century American historians American male non-fiction writers 1896 births 1979 deaths Vanderbilt University alumni Harvard University faculty Harvard Extension School faculty 20th-century American male writers