The Foreign Service Journal, September 2007

Philip M. Kaiser , 93, a former ambassador and an advocate for labor, died on May 24 of aspiration pneumonia at Sibley Hospital in Washington, D.C. Ambassador Kaiser was born in New York City. He earned a B.A. degree from the University of Wis- consin in 1935. A Rhodes scholar, he received another B.A. and an M.A. in 1939 from Balliol College of Oxford University. He also traveled widely in Europe before the war. In 1939, Amb. Kaiser joined the Federal Reserve Board in Washing- ton, D.C., as a research economist. Three years later, he was named chief of the project operations and plan- ning staffs at the Board of Economic Warfare, later the Foreign Economic Administration. He was a policy plan- ner at the State Department for a short time before joining the Depart- ment of Labor in 1946 as executive assistant to the assistant secretary for international affairs. In 1949, he was appointed assis- tant secretary of labor for internation- al affairs by President Truman. In that position, he worked to strength- en free trade unions in Europe and Japan, and helped create labor attaché positions to do so. In 1953, he became a labor adviser to the Free Europe Committee. He also joined the campaign staff of Averill Harri- man, becoming his special assistant when Harriman was elected governor of New York in 1954. From 1958 to 1961, he taught courses on interna- tional labor affairs at American University. In 1961, Mr. Kaiser was commis- sioned as a Foreign Service Reserve officer and appointed by President Kennedy as ambassador to Senegal, with concurrent accreditation to Mauritania. He was responsible for persuading Senegalese President Leopold Senghor to deny the USSR use of the Dakar airport for refueling during the Cuban missile crisis. In 1964, he was transferred to London to serve under Ambassador David K.E. Bruce as deputy chief of mission with the personal rank of minister. He was welcomed back to London by his many Oxford friends in the Labor Party, including Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Amb. Kaiser resigned his position at the embassy in 1969, but stayed on in London as managing director of Encyclopedia Britannica. He also became active in Democrats Abroad, an affiliate of the Democratic Party. At the 1976 Democratic Convention, he co-chaired the committee on for- eign policy; and in 1977, President Carter named him ambassador to Hungary. There he played a key role in negotiations that resulted in the return the Crown of St. Stephen to Hungary in 1978. In 1980, he was appointed ambassador to Austria, where he served for a year. Retiring to Washington, D.C., Amb. Kaiser wrote a book, Journey- ing Far and Wide: A Political and Diplomatic Memoir . He was a popu- lar raconteur and a competitive ten- nis player, and excelled at bridge and Scrabble. He is survived by his wife of 66 years, Hannah Greeley Kaiser of Washington, D.C.; three sons, Robert G. Kaiser, an associate editor of The Washington Post , David Kaiser of Williamston, Mass., and Charles Kai- ser of New York City; and four grand- children. Jack B. Kubisch , 85, a retired FSO and former ambassador, died in his sleep at his home in Southern Pines, N.C., on May 7. Ambassador Kubisch was born in Hannibal, Mo., in 1921. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Missouri, was awarded an honorable Doctor of Jurispru- dence degree from Central Metho- dist College, and completed his grad- uate studies at the Harvard Business School. He married Constance Rip- pe in 1944. Amb. Kubisch served in the U.S. Navy from 1941 to 1945 aboard the USS New York and USS Guam , partic- ipating in the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa and in the Philippine Libera- tion Campaign. After the war, he join- ed the Foreign Service. As a Foreign Service staff officer, he was posted to Rio de Janeiro in 1947. In Paris from 1949 to 1950, he was attached to the Economic Cooperation Administra- tion. He then returned to work in pri- vate industry for 10 years. In 1961, Amb. Kubisch re-entered the Foreign Service. Commissioned as a member of the Foreign Service Reserve, he was appointed deputy director of the U.S. Operations Mission — later the USAID mission — in Colombo. From 1962 to 1964, he served as director of the USAID mission in Rio de Janeiro with the personal rank of minister. In 1964, he received his commission as an FSO and was appointed economic coun- selor, still directing the USAID mis- sion. In 1965, he returned to State to direct the Office of Brazilian Affairs. He was assigned to Mexico City as DCM in 1969. As chargé d’affaires in Paris from 1971 to 1973, Amb. Kubisch assisted with the Vietnam peace negotiations. He also supervised the diplomatic con- tacts between the U.S. and China, which led to the establishment of liai- 82 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 7 I N M E M O R Y