Dr. Samuel Huntington, one of the nation's preeminent political scientists and a longstanding professor at Harvard University died Wednesday at an Oak Bluffs nursing home, at the age of 81. He was the founder of the influential journal Foreign Policy and his first book, “The Soldier and the State: the Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations,” merited a 50th anniversary symposium at West Point last year, even if reviewers weren't so kind when the book wast first published in 1957.

Dr. Huntington was a specialist in many areas, such as national security and military-civilian affairs and he worked in the Carter White House as coordinator of security planning for the National Security Council from 1977 to 1978. In the 1980s, he was a member of the Presidential Commission on Long-Term Integrated Strategy. Furthermore, Dr. Huntington was also active in Democratic politics, meeting his wife, Nancy, during the presidential campaign of Adlai Stevenson in 1956. He was a speech writer for Stevenson. Dr. Huntington married Nancy in 1957.

Another important work of Dr. Huntington was “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order”, an article which was centered on how differences between cultures throughout the world would be the cause of most post-Cold War conflicts. Basically, Dr. Huntington criticized the war in Iraq.

As for his life, Dr. Huntington was born in 1927 in New York. He graduated from Yale at age 18 in 1946, served briefly in the Army and received a master's degree from the University of Chicago, and then his doctorate from Harvard in 1951. Furthermore, since then he began his long teaching career at Harvard, at the age of 23. He stayed there for six decades. Dr. Huntington also served as president of the American Political Science Association from 1986 to 1987. His classes at Harvard were frequently oversubscribed, and that's because he asked for a small class size in order to create a dialogue between students and professor.

Huntington's most recent book was “Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity.” This was published in 2004 and it provoked accusations of racism for warning that a tide of Mexican immigration to the U.S. Would undermine America's Anglo-Protestant culture.
In addition to his wife, Dr. Huntington leaves two sons, Nicholas of Newton and Timothy of Boston, and four grandchildren. As for the burial services, they will be private. A memorial service at Harvard is planned for the spring, but the details are still pending.