An aeronautical engineer who became Indonesia's minister of technical development and eventually its president, B.J. Habibie (born 1936) was a lifelong devotee of Indonesian dictator Suharto. When student riots and economic turmoil forced Suharto from office, he named Habibie as his successor.

Known as a big-government free-spender and a proponent of bizarre economic theories, Habibie seemed an unlikely candidate to bail out Indonesia from its severe economic crisis of the late 1990s. He was closely identified with Suharto's corrupt policies and distrusted by students, the military, and foreign investors. Yet he instituted reforms and steered the country toward free elections, remaining in power longer than most observers expected.

Father Figure

Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie was born on June 25, 1936 in the sleepy seaside town of Pare Pare in the Indonesian state of South Sulawesi. The fourth of eight children, he was nicknamed "Rudy" at an early age. His father, Alwi...