Description:

Habib Philip

 

Korean Era Diaries of Famed Diplomat Philip Habib

 

These three pocket diaries offer insights into the daily activities of Philip C. Habib, while serving as chief of staff for the U.S. delegation to the Paris Peace Talks in 1970, as ambassador to South Korea in 1972, and in retirement in 1990. The 1970 diary served more as a personal phone book with listings for scores of people, including future Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, who had earlier served as a deputy to W. Averell Harriman during the Paris Peace Talks. The 1972 diary includes regular entries from July through December of Habib’s meetings and activities as U.S. ambassador to South Korea, where he had to engage with the repressive presidency of Park Chung Hee. Among the visiting dignitaries he hosted during this period were Admiral John S. McCain Jr. (1911-1981), the Commander-in-Chief of the United States Pacific Command; Bob R. Dorsey, the President of Gulf Oil; diplomat Dick Holbrooke; Senator Charles H. Percy of Illinois; and Spencer Davis, Pacific correspondent for the Associated Press. It also records a trip to Saigon and several meetings with President Park Chung Hee and Prime Minister Kim Chong Pil. The 1990 diary has scattered brief entries regarding travel and meetings, including separate ones with former Secretaries of State Cyrus Vance and George Shultz.

 

[MIDDLE EAST.] PHILIP C. HABIB, Three Pocket Diaries. 1970 Address Book and Diary, approximately 114 pp., 2.5" x 4", missing pages for April-July. 1972 Diary, provided by Air France, approximately 200 pp., 3" x 4.25", with integrated slide clasp and small pen, very good. 1990 Diary, approximately 140 pp., 3.25" x 4.75", very good.

 

Historical Background

In April 1971, President Park Chung Hee was narrowly re-elected for a third term with 51 percent of the vote. The following month, Park’s Democratic Republican Party won 113 of the 204 seats in the National Assembly, and the opposition New Democratic Party won 89. On June 3, 1971, President Park appointed Kim Chong Pil as prime minister.

 

Critics insisted that the nation’s constitution provided that the government in Seoul had sole jurisdiction over all of Korea and recognized no regime in the north, calling into question Park’s attempted negotiations with North Korea about reunification. The President dissolved the National Assembly, closed colleges and universities, and declared martial law on October 17, 1972. One month later, on November 21, an overwhelming 92 percent of voters approved several constitutional amendments, allowing Park to succeed himself indefinitely, to appoint one-third of the National Assembly’s ministers, and to exercise emergency powers at will. In response to the passage of these “reforms,” the President lifted martial law on December 13, though he continued to jail opponents.

 

In 1979, Park’s intelligence director assassinated him, and a military junta governed before its leader Major General Chun Doo-hwan became president in 1980 and held the office until 1988.

 

 

Philip C. Habib (1920-1992) was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in a Jewish neighborhood by Lebanese Maronite Catholic parents. He graduated from the University of Idaho in 1942 with a degree in forestry. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II and rose to the rank of captain. After the war, he earned a Ph.D. in agricultural economics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1952. He also took the Foreign Service examination and began a career with the United States Foreign Service in 1949. After service in Canada, New Zealand, South Korea, and South Vietnam, Habib served as chief of staff for the U.S. delegation to the Paris Peace Talks from 1968 to 1971. He served as Ambassador to South Korea from 1971 to 1974. He then served as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Public Affairs from 1974 to 1976 and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs from 1976 to 1978, when a heart attack forced his resignation. In 1981, President Ronald Reagan called Habib out of retirement to serve as special envoy to the Middle East, where he negotiated a peace that allowed the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to evacuate from the city of Beirut, which Israel had besieged. In 1986, Reagan sent Habib to the Philippines to convince Ferdinand Marcos to step down, and then to Central America to negotiate regarding conflict in Nicaragua. Habib supported Costa Rican president Óscar Arias’s peace plan focused on democratization, but Reagan refused to let him meet with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, and Habib resigned. Habib died while on vacation in France, and the New York Times described him as “the outstanding professional diplomat of his generation in the United States.”

 

 

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

 

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