MIT Professor, Renegade & Friend of Ghana Passes Away

Theodore Harrison, a former professor of international politics and foreign affairs at MIT, who moved to Ghana to avoid paying taxes during the Vietnam War and later set up a handicraft export business there, died Dec. 11 of emphysema in Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield. He was 69 and lived in Buckland.

''He had a lot of principles that he really stood behind, even sometimes to the point of being stubborn with them,'' said his son, Anthony Kwame Harrison of Virginia. ''He had a commitment to social justice. I think it was ... a real concern for the welfare of all peoples.''

Born in Boston, Mr. Harrison, who graduated from Yale University and received his master's degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, ''came from a relatively elite background,'' his son said. ''I think it really guided his views.''

Mr. Harrison loved classical music and had an extensive collection of art and stamps, his son said.

A peace activist who took part in numerous marches against the Vietnam War during the 1960s, Mr. Harrison left his post as a political science teacher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1968 to move to Ghana, where his great-great grandfather, a missionary, once oversaw the construction of one of the first main highways there, his son said. ''So in some ways, he was following in his footsteps.''

Mr. Harrison took to the local craftspeople in Ghana, especially weavers of Ashanti kente, which has served as a symbol of Pan-Africanism and Afrocentrism since the 1960s, Kwame Harrison said.

At a time when the country was newly independent of the British Empire and developing its first sewer system, Mr. Harrison worked with the government to open a retail outlet for crafts on the grounds of the Ghana National Cultural Centre in Kumasi, and helped to run it.

After returning to America in 1973, Mr. Harrison became the human services coordinator for Franklin County. His role was to oversee county funding of a wide range of projects, and in 1974, he wrote the grant to create the Franklin County Home Care Corporation, a service for the elderly, according to Ann Hamilton, president of the county's Chamber of Commerce. ''I think he had a real vision for what social services were needed,'' she said.

Mr. Harrison retired in 1986 and spent his time taking care of his garden and reading, his son said. He visited the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, and made it back to Ghana two times in recent years. In all, he traveled to 40 countries during his life.

Mr. Harrison was one of the founding members of the Partnership for the Arts in Western Massachusetts and was a trustee of the Arms Library in Shelburne Falls.

Mr. Harrison was radical when it came to social politics, but conservative when it came to spending his own money, his son said. ''Maybe from being born right after the Depression, [he] was always very concerned with where money was going. He didn't really like long-distance phone calls,'' he said.

In addition to his son, Mr. Harrison leaves his wife of 32 years, Adelaide Ama (Darkwa-Mensah); another son, H. Cobina of Clinton; a daughter, Eleanor, of Los Angeles; a brother, Stanley, of Bethlehem, N.H.; and a sister, Geraldine Lattimore of Lincoln and Dingley Island, Maine.

A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. on Dec. 28 at the Smith-Kelleher Funeral Home in Shelburne Falls.

This story ran on page B11 of the Boston Globe on 12/19/2002.