She said he was the Center's "intellectual soul."

"He embodied the scholarly ideal," said Ford Professor of Social Sciences Ezra F. Vogel. "He valued scholarship above money, position, status and fame."

Schwartz maintained his Harvard connections after he retired, coming to campus to write and converse with colleagues into late October.

"He was a very faithful and regular participant at the Fairbank Center lunch table," Perry said.

Schwartz served in the Army from 1942 to 1946 as an intelligence officer in Japan, specializing in translations.

He liked to tell the story of how he translated the Japanese message of surrender in 1945, Gordon said. He said that he looked up the word "surrender" in the dictionary two or three times to be sure he had it right.

Schwartz, who was fluent in ten languages, taught high school before joining the Army.

In addition to receiving a B.A. in French literature from the College, Schwartz graduated from Harvard's Far Eastern Regional Studies program in 1948.