After serving two years in the Army, he entered Michigan State University, where he graduated with a master's degree in Spanish in 1954 and a doctorate in 1961.
At that time he became acquainted with the work of Borges, and after getting in touch with him and receiving his approval, he began to translate some of the stories included in El Aleph (transl.
Together with another graduate student at Michigan State University named James Irby, he worked on a book manuscript that was rejected several times.
Finally, in 1962, it was accepted and published by New Directions as Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings by Jorge Luis Borges.
[1] He translated novels and short stories by other Argentine authors, including Marco Denevi, Manuel Peyrou, Rodolfo Walsh (with whom he co-founded the short-lived New World Literary Agency in the 1950s), Enrique Anderson Imbert, and Adolfo Bioy Casares.
From 1972 until 1976, while he was the head of Michigan State University's Spanish department, he regularly invited Borges to give classes at the institution.
A year later, fulfilling her husband's wishes, his widow gave to Michigan State University the entire collection of manuscripts, correspondence, and photos he had assembled of Borges and other writers from Argentina.