Former US ambassador Howard Schaffer dies at 88

Howard B Schaffer, a former US ambassador to Dhaka who created inseparable personal relations with Bangladesh, dies in Washington at the age of 88.

He died on Nov 17 and the cause was complications from congestive heart failure, according to media reports, quoting his son Washingtonian magazine editor Michael Schaffer.

He visited Bangladesh in 2013 when he met Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina who briefed the former US envoy about the progress Bangladesh made so far. Howard also visited Dhaka in 2006.

He was named the ambassador to Bangladesh in 1984 and, according to the Washington Post, "for three years in the position he helped to organise the distribution of US aid, encouraged the Bangladeshi government to shift from martial law toward democracy and participated in lengthy trade negotiations.”

“I spent far more time than I had ever expected to do on negotiations with the Bangladeshis on their garment exports to the United States,” he quipped in a 1997 oral history.

He was one of 29 diplomats to sign the 1971 "Blood Telegram," a first-of-its-kind State Department dissent cable that criticised US complicity toward a brutal Pakistani crackdown in East Pakistan, which soon became the independent state of Bangladesh.

He became a leading South Asia specialist who had a chequered 36-year career in the US Foreign Service and who formed a then-rare “diplomatic couple” with his wife, a fellow ambassador.

Howie, as he was often known, was considered the dean of South Asian diplomats — a veteran whose expertise on the conflict in the disputed region of Kashmir, or on the turbulent relationship between India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, was often called upon by other diplomats and academics, the Post reported.

He entered the Foreign Service in 1955 and worked as a political and economic officer, holding posts at embassies in India and Pakistan before serving two stints as deputy assistant secretary for South Asia in the 1980s.

Howard and his wife, fellow diplomat Teresita C Schaffer, were among the first couples to maintain dual careers in the Foreign Service, where nepotism rules sometimes prevented them from working at the same embassy.

After he retired in 1991, she became ambassador to Sri Lanka.

Howard Bruner Schaffer was born in Manhattan on July 21, 1929. His father ran a business that manufactured light fixtures.

He studied American history and literature at Harvard University, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in 1950, and developed an interest in foreign policy while serving in the Army during the Korean War.