Ellsworth Bunker

by Schaffer, Howard B.

• ISBN13: 9780807828250
• ISBN10: 0807828254
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-11-01
• Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Pr

Summary

The career of a diplomat's diplomat. In this first biography of Ellsworth Bunker (1894-1984), Howard Schaffer traces the life of one of postwar America's foremost diplomats from his formative years as a successful businessman and lobbyist through a long career, in international affairs. Named ambassador to Argentina by Harry Truman in 1951, Bunker went on to serve six more presidents as ambassador to Italy, India, Nepal, and Vietnam and on special negotiating missions. A widely recognized "hawk," Bunker helped shape U.S. policy in Vietnam during his six-year Saigon posting. Using letters Bunker wrote to his wife as well as recently declassified messages he exchanged with Henry Kissinger, Schaffer examines how Bunker promoted the war effort and how he regarded his mission. After leaving Saigon on his seventy-ninth birthday, Bunker next became a key figure in the treaty negotiations, spanning three presidencies, that radically changed the operation and defense of the Panama Canal. Highlighting Bunker's views on the craft of diplomacy, Schaffer paints a complex picture of a man who devoted three decades to international affairs and sheds new light on post-World War II American diplomacy. This book is part of the ADST-DACOR Diplomats and Diplomacy Series, co-sponsored by the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training in Arlington, Virginia, and Diplomatic & Consular Officers, Retired, Inc., of Washington, D.C.

Author Biography

Howard B. Schaffer is director of studies at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
Introduction	1	(2)
1 The Years before Diplomacy	3	(20)
2 A "Correct" Year with the Peróns	23	(13)
3 On, Briefly, to Rome	36	(9)
4 Red Cross President	45	(6)
5 In Nehru's India	51	(32)
6 Recharging the Battery	83	(6)
7 The West New Guinea Negotiations	89	(21)
8 Brokering a Yemen Settlement	110	(18)
9 Troubleshooting in the Dominican Republic and Elsewhere	128	(32)
10 To Center Stage in Vietnam	160	(33)
11 Tet and Afterwards	193	(25)
12 Vietnamization Has Succeeded	218	(51)
13 The Panama Canal Negotiations	269	(35)
14 Final Chapter	304	(13)
Notes	317	(42)
Bibliography	359	(8)
Index	367