Dr. Gordon Keith Harrington was born April 4, 1929 to Evelyn Leila Haley and Charlie Harrington in Yakima, Oregon. He attended Washington State College from 1947 to 1951 graduating with a Bachelor of History degree in 1951. That same year he was accepted to the Masters of Arts in International Relations program at the University of Chicago.
He left the University from 1953 until 1955 in order to serve his country as a Corporal in the United States Army. He worked in Cryptology and Intelligence during the Korean War from July 1953 until June 1955. After being honorably discharged from the Army he returned to the University of Chicago in 1955 to continue his Master’s program. In 1957 he married Mary E. (Polly) Paulson who was a fellow student. Gordon continued on at the University of Chicago earning a PhD in International Relations in 1959.
He was an assistant professor of History at Franklin College in Franklin, Indiana from 1959 to 1962; University of South Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina from 1962 to 1966; Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin from 1966 to 1969; and Weber State College in Ogden, Utah from 1969 until 1973, when he was promoted to a full tenured professor. He retired from Weber State University in 1999.
During his time at Weber State he was a professor and also the developer and coordinator of the Asian Studies program. He was also the editor of the Journal of Asian Studies for the Western Conference of the Association for Asian Studies from 1978-1996.
In 1992 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1994 he was awarded the Dello G Dayton Award for excellence in research and teaching by the Weber State College of Social and Behavioral Science. He and his wife Polly also developed a scholarship endowment in their name to facilitate Asian Studies at Weber State.
After a long illness he passed away on December 28, 2017 at the age of 88.