Arnold Oscar Wolfers papers

Arnold O. Wolfers was born on June 14, 1892 in St. Gallen, Switzerland, the son of Otto Gustav and Clara Hirschfield Wolfers. He graduated summa cum laude from the University of Zurich in 1917 with a degree in law. In 1917 Wolfers was admitted to the Swiss bar and he practiced law in St. Gallen from 1917 to 1919. From 1919 to 1924, Wolfers studied economics and political science in Switzerland, Germany, Britain, and the United States. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Giessen in 1924. From 1924 to 1930 he was a lecturer in political science at the Hochschule für Politik in Berlin, where he organized a new department of international studies. He became director of the Hochschule in 1930. From 1930 to 1933 he was a privadozent in economics at the University of Berlin.

Wolfers came to the United States in 1933, and was appointed visiting professor in international relations at Yale University in the same year. In 1935 he became a professor of international relations, and in 1949 he was named Sterling Professor of International Relations at Yale as well as the first director of the Division of Social Sciences. He was Master of Pierson College from 1935 to 1949.

Wolfers retired from Yale in 1957, and became the founding director of the Washington Center of Foreign Policy Research, an affiliate of the School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University in Washington. He retired from the position in 1965, but remained affiliated with the Center as a special advisor and research associate.

In addition to his teaching and adminstrative career, Wolfers was president of the World Peace Foundation in 1953; was a member of the resident faculty of the National War College in 1947, and a member of its board of consultants from 1947 to 1951. He was a special advisor to and lecturer at the School of Military Government in Charlottesville, Virginia from 1942 to 1944. He was a consultant to the Office of Strategic Services from 1944 to 1945, to the Civilian Advisory Group of the Army War College in 1962, and to the Institute of Defense Analysis from 1960 until his death. He was a member of the Council of the Institute for Strategic Studies in London in 1964.

In addition to many articles and chapters, Wolfers wrote Britain and France Between Two Wars (1940) and Discord and Collaboration (1962). He co-edited with L. Martin The Anqlo-American Tradition (1956), and edited and co-authored Alliance Policy in the Cold War (1959). He founded the journal World Politics.

Wolfers died on July 16, 1968. That year, a professorship was established in his name at Yale University.