Former U.N. Ambassador Vernon Walters Dies

By Michael F. Flach
HERALD Staff Writer
(From the issue of 2/21/02)

Ambassador Vernon A. Walters, a distinguished Catholic layman, soldier and diplomat, died Feb. 10 at Good Samaritan Medical Center in West Palm Beach, Fla. He was 85.

Walters — who attended the Cathedral of St. Thomas More in Arlington when he lived in the Washington area — was a decorated Army veteran whose career in public service spanned 50 years and six presidents.

He was presented with the 1985 Brent Award for Distinguished Service from the Arlington Diocese and in 1992 received the Christendom College Medal for Distinguished Service in International Relations.

In announcing the Brent Award, former Arlington Bishop John R. Keating praised Walters for his contributions as a soldier-diplomat and Catholic layman.

Born in New York City in 1917, Walters moved to Europe with his family at an early age. He came back to the United States and was working in the insurance business in 1941 when he enlisted in the U.S. Army. Thus began an illustrious career in which he served in various military and diplomatic roles.

Known for his outstanding linguistic skills, Walters served as aide-de-camp to General Mark W. Clark during World War II, assistant military attache to Brazil, and aid to Averell Harriman as the Marshall Plan helped reshape Europe following the war.

He served in Vietnam in 1967 before going to Paris to become Defense and Army attache to France. While in Paris, on orders from President Richard Nixon, Walters conducted secret negotiations with the North Vietnamese for three years. He had the task of smuggling Henry Kissinger, then President Nixon's national security adviser, into Paris. He also established contact with the Chinese communists in Paris, ultimately leading to President Nixon's historic visit to China in 1972.

Walters was appointed deputy director of the CIA and later served as acting director for five months. He retired in July 1976 after more than fours years with the agency.

In retirement, Walters wrote his memoirs, Silent Missions, published by Doubleday in 1978. He spoke widely of the need for effective intelligence on international affairs.

Secretary of State Alexander Haig called Walters out of retirement in 1981 to serve initially as a senior adviser until being named by President Ronald Reagan as ambassador at large, a position he held until 1985. He visited more than 100 countries during this period.

According to a report in the Washington Post, Haig called Walters "a man of towering integrity" and "one of the most remarkable public servants I have ever known."

"With his remarkable knowledge of the world, and his passion to see it changed for the better, he will remain for us an example of what the very best in our field must always be," said CIA Director George Tenet.

Walters later served as ambassador to both the United Nations and Germany. He retired for a second time in 1991. During his tenure at the U.N., Walters had a private audience with Pope John Paul II in 1988.

In 1994, Walters was part of an ad hoc group of U.S. Muslims, Baptists, women, academics and population researchers that opposed the controversial U.N. International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo.

"The U.N. has no business whatsoever interfering in family moral matters,'' said Walters at the time. He dismissed as "nonsense" the idea of political motivations behind Catholic-Muslim collaboration on the conference.

"The Vatican doesn't get in league with anyone," he said. "It sets a moral course, not a political one."

Never married, Walters will be buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery in March.

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