Tom Clausen, BofA, World Bank head, dies

A.W. "Tom" Clausen, who led San Francisco's Bank of America before and after serving as president of the World Bank, has died. He was 89.

Mr. Clausen, a Hillsborough resident, died Monday at Mills-Peninsula Medical Center in Burlingame, his wife, Helen, said. The cause was complications from pneumonia.

From his start as a part-time cash counter in a branch office in Los Angeles, Mr. Clausen rose through the ranks of Bank of America and its holding company, BankAmerica Corp., becoming president and chief executive officer in 1970. He was credited with reviving the bank during his second tenure there, from 1986 to 1990.

Even while presiding over Bank of America in the 1970s, when it was the nation's largest bank, Mr. Clausen regularly spoke publicly about the needs of developing countries, according to a 1980 New York Times profile.

That focus paid dividends when President Jimmy Carter nominated him in 1980 to succeed Robert McNamara as president of the World Bank.

During Mr. Clausen's five-year term, from July 1981 to June 1986, the World Bank struggled to help developing nations endure one of the worst recessions since World War II. It also had to respond to a shift in U.S. political attitudes under President Ronald Reagan.

While some questioned his leadership of the agency, Mr. Clausen defended his tenure, saying he accomplished what he could considering that the bank had 147 different governments as members.

Alden Winship Clausen was born on Feb. 17, 1923, in Hamilton, Ill., the son of Morton Clausen, publisher of the town's weekly newspaper, and the former Elsie Kroll.

He graduated from Carthage College in Kenosha, Wis., in 1944 and joined the U.S. Army Air Corps, serving as a meteorological officer. After the war, he obtained his law degree from the University of Minnesota.

He took a part-time job at a Bank of America branch in Los Angeles while waiting for his future wife, Mary Margaret Crassweller, to agree to marry him. They were married until her death in 2001.

Hooked by finance, he earned a spot in the bank's management training program. He was a senior vice president at 42.

His return to lead Bank of America as chairman and CEO in 1986, following his World Bank tenure, was a coda to his banking career. During his five-year absence, the bank had suffered loan and other losses that fanned speculation it would be taken over by the U.S. government.

The former Helen Higgins, his wife since 2002, worked as his secretary starting in 1970 at Bank of America and the World Bank. She recalled Wednesday how Mr. Clausen was called back to save Bank of America.

"He was out of the World Bank less than a week when he received a phone call from a member of the board asking him if he would please come back and, in essence, rescue the bank," she said. "They needed him."

Mr. Clausen retired in May 1990. He became chairman of the bank's executive committee.

In 1998, NationsBank Corp. merged with BankAmerica Corp. to create Bank of America, based in Charlotte, N.C., and now the second-largest U.S. bank by assets.

Besides his wife, Mr. Clausen's survivors include two sons, Eric and Mark, and five grandchildren.

Laurence Arnold is a Bloomberg writer. E-mail: larnold4@bloomberg.net