David H. Popper

David Henry Popper (October 3, 1912 – July 24, 2008) was a diplomat and former United States Ambassador to Cyprus (1969–73) and Chile (1974–77). He was a member and former President of the American Academy of Diplomacy.

Early life

Popper was born in Manhattan, NY and raised in White Plains, NY. He and his family were Jewish. Popper entered university at the young age of 15 and graduated valedictorian of his class from Harvard University in 1932 and received a Harvard master's degree in government in 1934. He then went on to join the research staff of the Foreign Policy Association, until the United States entered World War II. Popper worked in Army intelligence at a base in Miami where he traced Axis power movement and influence in Latin America.

Diplomatic career

Ambassador Popper with Makarios III of Cyprus.

David H. Popper began his career as a diplomat when WWII came to an end. In September 1945 Popper joined the US State Department and was assigned to the then new bureau of United Nations affairs. He had a brief scrap with McCarthyism when he was internally investigated because some past associates and organizations of which he had been a member had leftist connections. He was briefly suspended without pay, but after an investigation that involved interviewing his former Boy Scout leaders, he was cleared.

He served as Deputy Director of UN Political and Security Affairs from 1951 to 1954. He served as Director of the Office of Atlantic Political and Military Affairs from 1962 to 1965 alongside Adlai E. Stevenson, then ambassador to the United Nations. He served as US Ambassador to Cyprus (1969–73) during the administration of President Makarios. In 1973 he returned to Washington, DC to serve briefly as Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs for the duration of that year. His next assignment was to be his most prominent.

Popper is best known for having served as US ambassador to Chile during the Pinochet regime. His tenure began in February 1974, four months after General Augusto Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected president Salvador Allende in the 1973 Chilean coup d'état, with tacit support from the US government. In his capacity as chief US diplomat in Chile, Popper was forced to walk the diplomatic tight-rope of balancing concerns of human rights violations by the Chilean military regime with strategic geopolitical and economic objectives of the Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford administrations. The US embassy in Chile once received a cablegram from Secretary of State Henry Kissinger that read "Tell Popper to cut out the political science lectures" in reference to a meeting at which Popper had brought up human rights violation concerns with the Chilean defense minister.

After spending three years as ambassador to Chile he finished his diplomatic career as special representative for Panama Canal Treaty Affairs. He retired in 1980.

Writer

In semi-retirement David Popper served as the ghost writer for former UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim's memoirs, entitled In the Eye of the Storm. The book was published in 1986 but printing was soon terminated as Waldheim's past as a Nazi officer during World War II surfaced. The autobiography overlooked those years of Waldheim's life.

Death

Popper died at Georgetown University Hospital of complications from a fall at the age of 95. He had outlived his wife of 56 years, Florence Maisel Popper, who died in 1992. His companion of 14 years, Olie Rauh, had died 5 months earlier in February 2008. He has three daughters, one son, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

References

• Obituary at the Washington Post
• NNDB Profile
• Obituary at the New York Times
• Obituary at Los Angeles Times

Ambassadors of the United States to Chile Heman Allen Samuel Larned John Hamm John S. Pendleton William Crump Seth Barton Balie Peyton David A. Starkweather John Bigler Thomas H. Nelson Hugh Judson Kilpatrick Joseph Pomeroy Root Cornelius A. Logan Thomas A. Osborn Hugh Judson Kilpatrick Cornelius A. Logan William R. Roberts Patrick Egan James D. Porter Edward H. Strobel Henry L. Wilson John Hicks Thomas Cleland Dawson Henry Prather Fletcher Joseph H. Shea William Miller Collier William Smith Culbertson Hal H. Sevier Hoffman Philip Norman Armour Claude G. Bowers Willard L. Beaulac Cecil B. Lyon Walter Howe Robert F. Woodward Charles W. Cole Ralph A. Dungan Edward M. Korry Nathaniel Davis David H. Popper George W. Landau James D. Theberge Harry George Barnes, Jr. Charles A. Gillespie, Jr. Curtis Warren Kamman Gabriel Guerra-Mondragón John O'Leary William R. Brownfield Craig A. Kelly Paul E. Simons Alejandro Daniel Wolff Michael A. Hammer

Ambassadors of the United States to Cyprus Fraser Wilkins Taylor G. Belcher David H. Popper Robert J. McCloskey Rodger Davies William R. Crawford, Jr. Galen L. Stone Raymond C. Ewing Richard Wood Boehm Bill K. Perrin Robert E. Lamb Richard A. Boucher Kenneth C. Brill Donald Keith Bandler Michael Klosson Ronald L. Schlicher Frank C. Urbancic, Jr.

Assistant Secretaries of State for International Organization Affairs Rusk Hickerson Murphy Key Wilcox Cleveland Sisco De Palma Popper Buffum Lewis Maynes McCall Abrams Newell Keyes Williamson Bolton Bennet Lyman Welch Holmes Silverberg Hook Brimmer