Harold Freeman, long the leading teacher of statistics in MIT’s economics department, shaped economics at the Institute by taking a decisive role in recruiting Paul Samuelson, and later Robert Solow, from Harvard, each initially hired to teach statistics. Freeman was active during the Second World War in developing sequential analysis at the Statistical Research Group, providing applications that complemented Abraham Wald’s development of the theory. While remaining close friends with Samuelson and Solow, Freeman emerged in retirement as a sharp critic of mainstream economics and American capitalism in his book, Toward Socialism in America (1980).