26 Facts About Maurice Tempelsman

Maurice Tempelsman was born on August 26,1929 and is a Belgian-American businessman, a diamond magnate and merchant.

Maurice Tempelsman was the longtime companion of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, former First Lady of the United States.

When he was 16, Maurice Tempelsman began working for his father, a diamond broker.

Maurice Tempelsman attended New York City's public schools and New York University.

In 1950, Maurice Tempelsman created a new marketing niche by persuading the US government to stockpile African diamonds for industrial and military purposes, with him as the middleman.

In 1957, at the age of 27, he and his lawyer, Adlai Stevenson, traveled to Africa, where Maurice Tempelsman had begun forging ties with leaders.

Maurice Tempelsman was involved in the overthrow of Ghana's first elected president, Kwame Nkrumah, the CIA-backed assassination of Congo's first-elected prime minister, Patrice Lumumba and cover-up of CIA covert support of the former president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mobuto Sese Seko.

Maurice Tempelsman is chairman of the board of directors of Lazare Kaplan International Inc, the largest diamond company in the United States, noted for its "ideal cut" diamonds sold worldwide under the brand name, Lazare Diamonds.

Maurice Tempelsman is one of fewer than 90 "sightholders" in the world, which means that 10 times a year he is permitted to buy diamonds directly from the powerful De Beers cartel in the City of London.

Maurice Tempelsman maintains relations with political and business leaders, in particular government leaders in Africa and Russia, and leading figures in the US Democratic Party.

From 1993 to 1997, Maurice Tempelsman visited the White House at least ten times, met privately with Hillary Clinton on two occasions, vacationed with the Clintons and the Kennedy family in Martha's Vineyard, and flew to Moscow and back with President Clinton on Air Force One.

In Southern Africa, Maurice Tempelsman has played a key role in negotiations between hostile governments and companies engaging in diamond exploration.

Maurice Tempelsman met with Mobutu Sese Seko, to assist the regime's business dealings with De Beers.

From March 3,1977, Maurice Tempelsman briefly held the title of honorary consul general for Zaire, now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo, at the DRC's consular offices in New York City.

Maurice Tempelsman served as chairman of the Corporate Council on Africa from 1999 to 2002 and again from 2007 to 2008, after which he was named chairman emeritus.

Maurice Tempelsman was a board member of the Southern African Enterprise Development Fund, and past chairman and long-serving board member of the Africa-America Institute.

Maurice Tempelsman is a trustee of the Eurasia Foundation, and a director of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, the Center for National Policy, the Business Council for International Understanding, and the US-Russia Business Council.

Maurice Tempelsman is chairman of the International Advisory Council of the Harvard School of Public Health's AIDS Initiative, and is an honorary trustee and an honorary member of the corporation of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Maurice Tempelsman is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and was named a visitor to the Department of Classical Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Maurice Tempelsman has served on several Presidential Commissions including the President's Commission for the Observance of Human Rights, the Citizen's advisory board of Youth Opportunities and the National Highway Safety Advisory Committee, and was appointed to the New York Council on International Business.

In 1980, Maurice Tempelsman bought, for $1 million, two 500 BC acroliths representing Demeter and Persephone; the pieces consisted of two marble heads, three feet, and three hands.

Maurice Tempelsman purchased them from the later-infamous art dealer Robin Symes.

Putatively, in 2005, Maurice Tempelsman donated the pieces to the university museum, and the restitution to Italy was mediated by the university's archeology professor Malcolm Bell III.

Maurice Tempelsman has adult children by his wife Lilly Bucholz, who had fled Antwerp with her family.

Maurice and Lilly Tempelsman were guests at the State Dinner given at Mount Vernon, Virginia in honor of the President Ayub Khan of Pakistan in 1961.

In 1988, Maurice Tempelsman moved into Onassis's Fifth Avenue penthouse apartment in New York City.