Raymond J. Saulnier

Career

Saulnier was Director of the Financial Research Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research from 1946-1961. He initiated the use of economic indicators developed at the National Bureau within the White House and government in general. In 1959 while at the CEA, he provided the Economic Brief (with CEA staff member Irving Siegel and the Justice Department) that went to the Supreme Court making the economic case for terminating, by Taft-Hartley injunction, the industry-wide steel strike that was having a significant negative effect on the US economy. He was professor at Columbia University/Barnard from 1944 to 1973.

Saulnier was preceded by Arthur Burns as Chairman of the CEA (also of Columbia University) during Eisenhower's first term and Leon Keyserling, Chairman during most of President Truman's term. Through his writings and personal letters to economists such as Herb Stein (Chairman of the CEA 1972-74) he argued for an independent, non-political CEA to advise the President and act as a resource outside of the politics of the Treasury Department.

Personal

He married Estelle Sydney March 17, 1934. He is the father of Mark Saulnier (December 31, 1934) and Alice Saulnier (June 8, 1938). He was a board member of several industrial and financial companies including New York Bank for Savings, American Stock Exchange, Missouri Pacific Railroad, American Potash and Chemical, Howmet Corporation, and Houdaille Industries. He was a consultant to Marine Midland Bank of New York and Harold Geneen, Chairman of International Telephone & Telegraph (ITT). He was a member of the Board of Trustees (Finance Committee), Middlebury College 1956-1973, as well as a member of the Century Club. Until his death, he resided in Chestertown, Maryland.