1. Ellsworth F Bunker was an American businessman and diplomat who served as ambassador to Argentina, Italy, India, Nepal and South Vietnam.
18 Facts About Ellsworth Bunker
1. 2.
Ellsworth Bunker is perhaps best known for being a hawk on the war in Vietnam and Southeast Asia during the 1960s and 1970s.
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Ellsworth Bunker was born on May 11,1894, in Yonkers, New York.
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Ellsworth Bunker was the eldest of three children of George Raymond Bunker and Jeanie Polhemus, whose family descended from prominent early Dutch settlers including the Evertson family and the Schuyler family.
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Ellsworth Bunker's great-grandmother Eliza Brodhead Polhemus nee Heyer was a niece of Stephen Whitney, reputedly the wealthiest American of his time after John Jacob Astor, while her first cousin Charles Suydam was the brother-in-law of Astor's grandson William Backhouse Astor Jr.
6.
Ellsworth Bunker's father was one of the founders and chairman of the board of National Sugar Refining Company.
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Ellsworth Bunker's younger brother, Arthur Hugh Bunker, was a noted businessman, chairman of the executive committee of the War Production Board during World War II, and president and then board chairman of American Metal Climax.
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Ellsworth Bunker was married to actress and writer Isabel Leighton.
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Ellsworth Bunker was enrolled at Yale University in 1912 and graduated in 1916 with a major in economics and a minor in history.
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Ellsworth Bunker first worked in his father's company, National Sugar Refining Company, eventually becoming the company's president, succeeding Horace Havemeyer Sr.
11.
Ellsworth Bunker retired as an active executive in 1951 and purchased a 600-acre dairy farm in Putney, Vermont.
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Ellsworth Bunker remained a member of the board of National Sugar until 1966.
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Ellsworth Bunker then moved to government during the Harry S Truman administration, when Truman appointed him ambassador to Argentina in April 1951.
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Ellsworth Bunker was replaced by John Kenneth Galbraith in 1961.
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Ellsworth Bunker is one of only two persons who received the award twice, and the only person to receive it both times with distinction.
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Ellsworth Bunker married a neighbor, Harriet Allen Butler, daughter of Ellen Mudge and George Prentiss Butler, in Yonkers, New York on April 24,1920.
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Later that year, Ellsworth Bunker was named ambassador to South 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 Ellsworth Bunker to accept the post.
18.
Ellsworth Bunker died on September 27,1984, at his dairy farm in Putney, Vermont.