Frederic Pryor

Frederic L. Pryor (born 1933) is a Senior Research Scholar of Economics at Swarthmore College. He is best known for his subsidiary role in a Cold War spy swap.

Cold War incident

In August, 1961, Pryor was arrested and held without charge by the East German police. He had been taking graduate courses in East European studies at the Free University of West Berlin since 1959.

On February 10, 1962, Pryor was freed at Checkpoint Charlie just before American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers was swapped for Soviet KGB Colonel Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher (aka Rudolf Ivanovich Abel) at the Glienicke Bridge between West Berlin and Potsdam, East Germany.^[1][2]

Soviet spy Fisher had been arrested in 1957 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the famous Hollow Nickel Case and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Academic history

• B.A. Chemistry, 1955, Oberlin College
• M.A., Economics, 1957, Yale University
• Ph.D., Economics, 1962, Yale University with courses at the Free University of West Berlin, 1959–1961

Career

• Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Michigan, 1962–1964
• Research Staff Economist, Economic Growth Center, Yale University, 1964–1966
• Visiting Associate Professor of Economics (part-time), Lincoln University, 1967
• Swarthmore College: Assistant and Associate Professor, 1967–1972
• Visiting Associate Professor of Economics, International Development Research Center, Indiana University, 1969
• Swarthmore College: Professor of Economics, 1972–1998
• Visiting Fellow, Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 1972–1973
• Visiting Professor, Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, 1977–1978; 1982
• Swarthmore College: Acting Chair, 1980–1981; 1983–1984; 1988–1989
• Visiting Professor, École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris, 1981
• Visiting Scholar, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, 1989–1990
• Guest Scholar, Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., 1993–1994
• Consulting economist to the World Bank 1998-2001.
• Swarthmore College: Senior Research Scholar, 1998–present
• Visiting Scholar, Max-Planck-Institut zur Erforschung von Wirtschaftssystemen, Jena, 2004

References

External links

• Pryor's resume