Leon H. Keyserling; New Deal Planner, Adviser to Truman
Leon H. Keyserling, an architect of the New Deal and chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Truman Administration, has died.
He was 79, and his death Sunday in George Washington University Hospital was attributed to a long illness.
While a legislative aide in Congress in the 1930s, he was a draftsman of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s public works programs, collective bargaining provisions, housing measures, Social Security and labor relations laws.
From 1938 to 1946, Keyserling served in federal housing agencies. He was acting administrator of the office supervising the building of several million government-financed housing units for defense workers in World War II. He also was an architect of legislation leading to creation of the Housing and Urban Development Department.
Under President Harry S. Truman, Keyserling was vice chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers between 1946 and 1949 and its chairman from 1949 to 1953.
After leaving government in 1953, he became a private consulting economist and practiced law. In 1954, he founded the Conference on Economic Progress and served as its president and director.
Surviving is his wife, Mary, an economist who was head of the women’s bureau of the Labor Department during the Johnson Administration.
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