Arthur Burns Dies; Adviser to Presidents

WASHINGTON — Arthur Burns, a former Federal Reserve Board chairman, ambassador to West Germany and longtime presidential economic adviser, died today in Baltimore of complications from heart surgery. He was 83.

A spokesman for Johns Hopkins Hospital said Burns died about six weeks after he had undergone triple-bypass surgery.

Burns was an economist, statesman, central banker and adviser to several Presidents.

Born in Stanislau, Austria, now in the Soviet Ukraine, on April 27, 1904, he grew up in Bayonne, N.J., and became an economics professor before entering the government in the 1950s.

He served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board from 1970 to ’78 and as ambassador to West Germany from 1981 to ’85.

Phil Kibak, the spokesman at Johns Hopkins, said Burns was admitted to the hospital in April and underwent cardiac surgery. He died at noon of heart failure complicated by a stroke, Kibak said.

Besides his government service, Burns also was known as a pioneer in economics research.

In 1937, he and his mentor, Wesley Mitchell, identified certain economic signposts as “leading” and “lagging” indicators that the economy was going into or coming out of a recession. Those indicators are still reported by the government every month and play a key role in economic forecasting.