Ellsworth F. Bunker (May 11, 1894 – September 27, 1984) was an American businessman and diplomat who served as ambassador to Argentina, Italy, India, Nepal and South Vietnam. He is perhaps best known for being ahawk on the war inVietnam and Southeast Asia during the 1960s and 1970s. As of February 2024[update], Bunker is one of only two people to have been awarded thePresidential Medal of Freedom twice, and the only person to receive both awards With Distinction.
Bunker's father was one of the founders and chairman of the board of National Sugar Refining Company. His younger brother, Arthur Hugh Bunker (July 29, 1895 – May 19, 1964), was also a noted businessman, chairman of the executive committee of theWar Production Board (1941–1945) during World War II, and president and then board chairman of American Metal Climax (AMAX). He was married to actress and writerIsabel Leighton.[2][4] His first cousin Dorothy Penrose Cobb was married to historianFrederick Lewis Allen.[5]
Ellsworth Bunker was enrolled atYale University in 1912 and graduated in 1916 with a major in economics and a minor in history.[1][6]
Bunker first worked in his father's company, National Sugar Refining Company,[1] eventually becoming the company's president, succeeding Horace Havemeyer Sr., in 1942. During World War II he served as chairman of the War Production Board's cane sugar advisory committee.[7] He retired as an active executive in 1951 and purchased a 600-acre dairy farm inPutney, Vermont.[8] He remained a member of the board of National Sugar until 1966.[9]
He was awarded thePresidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction twice—the first time byJohn F. Kennedy in 1963 (though the ceremony took place duringLyndon B Johnson's term) and the second time byLyndon B. Johnson in 1967. He is one of only two persons (the other beingColin Powell) who received the award twice, and the only person to receive it both times with distinction.
Bunker married a neighbor, Harriet Allen Butler, daughter of Ellen Mudge and George Prentiss Butler, inYonkers, New York on April 24, 1920.[20] Harriet had made friends with Bunkers' sister Katherine when the two girls attendedMiss Porter's School in Farmington, Connecticut.[21] They had three children, John Birkbeck, Samuel Emmet, and Ellen Mudge.[22] She died in 1964.[23]
On January 3, 1967 he married fellow ambassadorCaroline Clendening "Carol" Laise inKatmandu, Nepal.[24][25] Their marriage was the first between two American Ambassadors on active duty.[26] Later that year, Bunker was named ambassador toSouth Vietnam and for nearly the first six years of their marriage they only saw each other monthly, via a special government flight offered by President Johnson as enticement for Bunker to accept the post.[27] Laise died in 1991. Ambassador Laise was a friend of the first Mrs. Bunker.[28]
Bunker died on September 27, 1984, at his dairy farm inPutney, Vermont.[29][30] The funeral was attended by his good friend and neighbor former senatorGeorge Aiken and former presidentRichard M. Nixon. Aiken died two months later.[31]
His middle child, John Birkbeck Bunker (March 8, 1926 – May 26, 2005), a first lieutenant in World War II, died of cancer at his home inWheatland, Wyoming at age 79.[32][33][34]
In a 1978Doonesburycartoon, a New York tailor fittingPhred with a very old-fashioned suit says "Ellsworth Bunker used to get everything from me".
Bunker is mentioned inAllen Ginsberg's poem "September on Jessore Road", which includes the line "Where is Ambassador Bunker today? Are hisHelios machine gunning children at play?"[35]
In chapter 7 ofJohn Irving's 1989 novelA Prayer for Owen Meany: "And whom did Ellsworth Bunker replace? Remember that? Of course you don't!"
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