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Ellsworth Bunker--Global Troubleshooter, Vietnam Hawk

Image: Ellsworth Bunker--Global Troubleshooter, Vietnam HawkIn 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 that climaxed with his six-year assignment as ambassador to South Vietnam and his lead role in the negotiation and enactment of the Panama Canal Treaties.

Named ambassador to Juan Peron's 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 diplomatic assignments. Dean Acheson called him a rara avis, a political appointee who became a natural professional in diplomacy. Indians still recall his accomplishments a half-century after his years in New Delhi. His work there led a succession of presidents to assign Bunker difficult, politically sensitive troubleshooting tasks from Indonesia to Yemen to the Dominican Republic.

A dedicated "hawk," Bunker helped shape U.S. policy as ambassador to wartime Saigon. Using letters Bunker sent to his wife and 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 went on to become a key figure in the negotiations during the Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations that radically changed the operation and defense of the Panama Canal.

Published by The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill and London. ISBN: 0-8078-2825-4; www7.uncpress.unc.edu.