Viron P. Vaky
| Viron Peter Vaky | |
|---|---|
| United States Ambassador to Costa Rica | |
|
In office October 17, 1972 – February 9, 1974 |
|
| President | Richard Nixon |
| Preceded by | Walter Christian Ploeser |
| Succeeded by | William Garton Bowdler |
| United States Ambassador to Colombia | |
|
In office April 5, 1974 – June 23, 1976 |
|
| President | Richard Nixon |
| Preceded by | Leonard J. Saccio |
| Succeeded by | Phillip Victor Sanchez |
| United States Ambassador to Venezuela | |
|
In office July 26, 1976 – June 24, 1978 |
|
| President | Gerald Ford |
| Preceded by | Harry Walter Shlaudeman |
| Succeeded by | William H. Luers |
| Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs | |
|
In office July 21, 1978 – November 30, 1979 |
|
| President | Jimmy Carter |
| Preceded by | Terence Todman |
| Succeeded by | William G. Bowdler |
| Personal details | |
| Born | September 13, 1925 Corpus Christi, Texas |
| Died | November 22, 2012 Mitchellville, Maryland |
Viron Peter Vaky (September 13, 1925 – November 22, 2012) was an American diplomat who was United States Ambassador to Costa Rica (1972–74), Colombia (1974–76), and Venezuela (1976). He was a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy and Council on Foreign Relations.
Viron P. Vaky was born in Corpus Christi, Texas on Sept. 13th, 1925, as a son of Greek immigrants. During the Second World War, he was part of the Army Signal Corps, while graduating from the Georgetown School of Foreign Service in 1947. One year later, he obtained an MA in international relations from the University of Chicago. In 1949, Vaky joined the Foreign Service and went on to serve as career diplomat until 1980, when he retired from the State Department. Following this, he taught at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service, ultimately becoming an associate dean.
Documents declassified and made available in 2013 show that in September 1970, when Vaky was the top deputy to Henry Kissinger, Vaky took a stand against Kissenger's plan to overthrow Salvador Allende who was the democratically elected president of Chile. According to the account published on the National Security Archive, Vaky wrote a memo to Kissinger arguing that coup plotting would lead to "widespread violence and even insurrection." He also argued that such a policy was immoral: "What we propose is patently a violation of our own principles and policy tenets .… If these principles have any meaning, we normally depart from them only to meet the gravest threat to us, e.g. to our survival. Is Allende a mortal threat to the U.S.? It is hard to argue this."
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