James David Barber, 74; Political Scientist Wrote About U.S. Presidents

James David Barber, 74, a political scientist who won national attention for his observations on the personalities of U.S. presidents, died Sunday at his home in Durham, N.C. The cause of death was not reported, but Barber was known to have had Alzheimer’s disease.

In 1972, Barber published “The Presidential Character: Predicting Performance in the White House,” which proposed that a president’s character, world view and personal style determine his approach to his duties in office.

In its first edition, he forecast that Richard Nixon’s presidency was headed for failure.

“His work on presidential power and presidential psychology was very salient at the time of the Nixon resignation,” said Peter Fish, a professor of political science at Duke University.

Barber was born in Charleston, W.Va. He received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Chicago and earned his doctorate from Yale University.

After teaching political science at Yale, he went to Duke University in 1972 as chairman of the political science department. At Duke, he was also co-director of the Center for Communication and Journalism and, in the mid-1980s, chairman of Amnesty International U.S.A. He spent 11 years on the board of the Poynter Institute, a center for the study of journalism and media ethics in St. Petersburg, Fla.