
Marina von Neumann Whitman Dead: International Trade Expert Was 90
She was the first woman to serve on the White House Council of Economic Advisers. At General Motors, she became one of the highest-ranking women in corporate America.Marina von Neumann Whitman, an expert in international trade who in 1972 became the first woman to be appointed to the White House Council of Economic Advisers and who later was one of the few women to join the executive leadership at General Motors, died on May 20 in Concord, Mass. She was 90.Her son, Malcolm Whitman, said her death, in a hospital, was from complications of pneumonia.Dr. Whitman was just 36 when President Richard M. Nixon nominated her for his three-person economic council, making her the highest-ranking woman in his administration.“As a woman, she will be outnumbered on the council two to one, but not in terms of brains,” the president said in the Oval Office with Dr. Whitman and her family by his side. (The council’s other members at the time were Herbert Stein and Ezra Solomon.)Dr. Whitman was an academic economist by training — she taught at the University of Pittsburgh and later at the University of Michigan — but she alternated her work in the classroom with extensive stints in the public and corporate sectors.Dr. Whitman in 2010. Over the years she alternated her work in the classroom, as a professor of economics, with stints in the public and corporate sectors.Scott R. Galvin, Michigan Photography, University of MichiganBefore joining the Council of Economic Advisers, she had worked for it as a staff economist and then served on the president’s board overseeing price controls.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More