2011.05.22: May 22, 2011: Obituary for Chile Country Director Nathaniel Davis

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Chile: Peace Corps Chile : Peace Corps Chile: Newest Stories: 2011.05.22: May 22, 2011: Obituary for Chile Country Director Nathaniel Davis

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Obituary for Chile Country Director Nathaniel Davis

Obituary for Chile Country Director Nathaniel Davis

He joined the Foreign Service in 1947 and served in Prague; Florence, Italy; Rome; and Moscow. He became first secretary in the embassy in Venezuela in 1960, and two years later was sent to administer the first Peace Corps volunteers in Chile. He returned to Washington to help R. Sargent Shriver organize the Peace Corps, which had been established by President John F. Kennedy. Mr. Davis's first ambassadorship was to Bulgaria in 1965. After two years, he joined the National Security Council to oversee Soviet and East European matters. In 1968 he was named ambassador to Guatemala, succeeding John Gordon Mein, who had been assassinated by terrorists. Mr. Davis was sent to Chile 11 months before the coup with instructions "not to involve ourselves in any way," Mr. Kissinger wrote in his memoirs. Little more than a month after the coup, Mr. Davis was promoted to director general of the Foreign Service in Washington. Mr. Kissinger chose Mr. Davis to head African diplomacy in 1975. His lack of experience with the continent prompted Africans, American blacks, editorialists and even Mr. Davis himself to question the appointment. He resigned several months after questioning the wisdom of aiding anti-Communist forces. Roger Morris, in "Uncertain Greatness: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy" (1977), quoted an unidentified official as speculating that Mr. Davis wanted to protect his career from "one Chile too many."

Obituary for Chile Country Director Nathaniel Davis

Nathaniel Davis, Diplomat, Is Dead at 86

By DOUGLAS MARTIN

Published: May 22, 2011

Nathaniel Davis, a seasoned diplomat who shepherded American interests through upheavals like the Chilean coup of 1973 and the breakout of civil war in Angola in 1975, died on May 16 in Claremont, Calif. He was 86.
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Associated Press

Nathaniel Davis in 1983.

The cause was heart failure, his wife, Elizabeth, said.

In the week before the military coup in Chile on Sept. 11, 1973, during which President Salvador Allende Gossens died, most likely by suicide, Mr. Davis, then the American ambassador to Chile, made a two-day visit to Washington. Over the years, that trip has often been interpreted as suggesting that the United States was involved in the plot.

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At the time, the State Department maintained that Mr. Davis had been summoned as a matter of routine, as had other ambassadors, to meet with Secretary of State-designate Henry A. Kissinger.

Through Congressional hearings and the release of classified documents, it later came out that President Richard M. Nixon and his top intelligence aides had indeed ordered spies, in a top-secret plan called Track Two, to cultivate relationships with military officers who opposed the governing socialists. Mr. Davis said he never knew about the plan until its existence was revealed at a Senate hearing in 1975.

He did know, he said, that Washington had wanted to encourage economic distress that might lead to political change, and he made a much-quoted remark that it would have been difficult to destabilize the Chilean economy any more than it already was.

Seymour M. Hersh, in his book "The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House" (1983), quoted from one of Mr. Davis's cables: "What is significant now is growing conviction in opposition parties, private sector and others that opposition is necessary."

On the coup's 30th anniversary in 2003, Mr. Davis wrote that no evidence had emerged to prove American involvement. He pointed out that even Chile's Socialist Party now believed that Mr. Allende took his own life during the coup with a weapon given to him by Fidel Castro, while the presidential palace was under siege.

He asserted that the thousands of documents now declassified had not altered the views he expressed in his history of the coup, "The Last Two Years of Salvador Allende," published in 1985 to good reviews. (Mr. Allende's body is scheduled to be exhumed Monday in Santiago, Chile, as part of a new investigation into his death.)

Mr. Davis's interpretations have not always been believed, however. After the movie "Missing," directed by Costa-Gavras, came out in 1982, portraying Mr. Davis and two other former American officials as having been complicit in the murder of an American journalist, he and the others filed a libel suit. They initially sought $60 million in damages for the "public disgrace, scorn and ridicule" they had suffered. The suit was eventually dismissed.

Mr. Davis was assistant secretary for African affairs when Angola became independent of Portugal in 1975. He convened a task force that recommended against covert military intervention on behalf of anti-Communist forces, questioning the cost, the risks and the probability of success.

That was not the answer his bosses wanted, and the matter was passed to a secret intelligence committee, which did not include Mr. Davis, Raymond L. Garthoff wrote in "Détente and Confrontation" (1985).

The committee approved secret aid, which helped set the stage for a prolonged civil war between the Soviet-backed government and anti-Communist rebels backed by the United States.

Nathaniel Davis was born in Cambridge, Mass., on April 12, 1925. His father, Harvey, was a Harvard professor; his mother, the former Alice Rohde, was a research medical doctor. He graduated from Brown, served in the Navy Reserve and earned master's and doctorate degrees from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

He joined the Foreign Service in 1947 and served in Prague; Florence, Italy; Rome; and Moscow. He became first secretary in the embassy in Venezuela in 1960, and two years later was sent to administer the first Peace Corps volunteers in Chile. He returned to Washington to help R. Sargent Shriver organize the Peace Corps, which had been established by President John F. Kennedy.

Mr. Davis's first ambassadorship was to Bulgaria in 1965. After two years, he joined the National Security Council to oversee Soviet and East European matters. In 1968 he was named ambassador to Guatemala, succeeding John Gordon Mein, who had been assassinated by terrorists.

Mr. Davis was sent to Chile 11 months before the coup with instructions "not to involve ourselves in any way," Mr. Kissinger wrote in his memoirs.

Little more than a month after the coup, Mr. Davis was promoted to director general of the Foreign Service in Washington.

Mr. Kissinger chose Mr. Davis to head African diplomacy in 1975. His lack of experience with the continent prompted Africans, American blacks, editorialists and even Mr. Davis himself to question the appointment.

He resigned several months after questioning the wisdom of aiding anti-Communist forces. Roger Morris, in "Uncertain Greatness: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy" (1977), quoted an unidentified official as speculating that Mr. Davis wanted to protect his career from "one Chile too many."

Mr. Davis was soon appointed ambassador to Switzerland.

He became diplomat in residence at the Naval War College in 1977, and stayed there until 1983. He then became a professor of humanities at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, Calif., retiring in 2002.

Mr. Davis was active in the civil rights movement and in the Democratic Party. He was also an experienced mountain climber. In 1995 he wrote a history of the Russian Orthodox Church called "A Long Walk to Church."

In addition to his wife, the former Elizabeth Kirkbride Creese, Mr. Davis is survived by his daughters, Margaret Davis Mainardi and Helen Miller Davis; his sons, James Creese Davis and Thomas Rohde Davis; eight grandchildren; two great-granddaughters; and two sisters.




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