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Ellsworth Bunker

The University of North Carolina Press

Introduction

Already in his late fifties, Bunker had seen the Buenos Aires embassy as a brief stop on the way to a quiet, retired life, not as the start of a full-fledged, highly distinguished second career in public service. But before he finally left the diplomatic frontlines in 1979 at the age of eighty-five, he went on to become ambassador to Italy, India, Nepal, and, most famously, South Vietnam. As special diplomatic negotiator and troubleshooter, he helped resolve major challenges to U.S interests in such far-flung places as Indonesia, Yemen, Panama, and the Dominican Republic. When no diplomatic appointments were available, he served as the first full-time, salaried president of the American Red Cross. His years in diplomacy and public life climaxed with the complex negotiations and arduous domestic political effort that resulted in the signing and ratification of controversial treaties governing the operation and security of the Panama Canal.

Acheson has rightly called Bunker a rara avis, a natural professional in diplomacy. Dean Rusk has said that he considered himself blessed to have Bunker's services. Both of these secretaries of state joined many others in the foreign policy world, not least seven presidents, from Harry Truman to Jimmy Carter, in prizing him as an accomplished diplomatic craftsman, perhaps the most skillful of his time. He won similar respect from foreign leaders as different from one another as Prime Minister Nehru of India and President Sukarno of Indonesia.

A man with no political axes to grind or personal ambitions to satisfy, Bunker considered his public service a responsibility that a patriotic American should willingly shoulder. He brought to his assignments the classic skills and qualities that are vital to the successful conduct of diplomacy: integrity, creativity, realism, precision, and an ability to step into the shoes of his negotiating partners and understand their priorities. He had seemingly infinite patience, an innate courtesy, and a talent for convincing the foreign leaders and officials he dealt with that he was genuinely interested in helping them reach settlements that would satisfy their needs as well as his own. His impressive physical appearance and his gentlemanly, seemingly aristocratic manner contributed to his effectiveness.

Bunker proved unusually adept in carrying out specific diplomatic tasks. Like all good ambassadors and special negotiators, he sought to influence strategy and tactics. Surprisingly for someone of his recognized diplomatic achievements, he rarely challenged the main contours of U.S. policy toward the countries he dealt with. Nor did he seek a significant part in shaping America's role in the world or in crafting diplomatic architecture to promote this. What was important to him were the issues for which he was immediately responsible. He was masterly in dealing with these in resourceful ways that achieved the objectives Washington laid out.

Bunker's place in the annals of American diplomatic history has been distorted by his assignment to Saigon, where he served as ambassador for six crucial years during the Vietnam War. Caught up in the bitter antagonisms the war generated, he became for the first time in his public life both a widely recognized figure and a controversial one. He is now remembered, ironically, more for what he did or failed to do as Lyndon Johnson's and Richard Nixon's representative in South Vietnam than for any of his other diplomatic assignments.

The prominence of Bunker's role as a "hawk" in wartime Saigon and the controversies that still surround it should not obscure the major contributions he made to the successful practice of American diplomacy. Many of his accomplishments in promoting U.S. interests in areas of continuing significance to our national security remain relevant now, almost a quarter century after he retired from public life. Perhaps most important, the way Ellsworth Bunker went about achieving the difficult goals assigned him can teach our generation a great deal that is as useful to the conduct of foreign policy in these very different times as it was in his day.

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Excerpted from Ellsworth Bunker by Howard B. Schaffer Copyright © 2003 by University of North Carolina Press. Excerpted by permission.
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