Part 2 (Obituaries) - King's College - University of Cambridge

232
OBITUARIES
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Warren attended Yale University to study
English Literature, in which he excelled, graduating magna cum laude (highest
honours) and winning the prestigious Fulbright scholarship to study at
Cambridge, where he completed a Master’s degree in History.Throughout his
years at university,Warren also was very active in sports.Yale rated him one of
their top squash players, and the game remained a passionate pastime for him
throughout his life.
In 1961, Warren began what would become a distinguished career in the US
Department of State, eventually serving as the USA’s last Ambassador to the
former nation ofYugoslavia. He also served at the embassies in Moscow, Paris
and Caracas, and as the United States Ambassador to the Conference on
Security and Cooperation in Europe, which was held in Vienna.
Throughout his service, Warren believed in an active US strength responsibly
accomplishing good causes, a position highly influenced by the philosophies of
Dean Acheson and Cold War policies. His penchant for action and fervent
commitment to promoting human rights, however, made Warren increasingly
ill at ease with the Clinton administration’s distrust of American power, as well
as the waxing Republican readiness to use international power unilaterally.
On the one hand, Warren was horrified by American inaction during the
early years of Balkan disintegration, and recalled his Belgrade years viscerally
in his book Origins of a Catastrophe. In that book he bemoans that “Western
diplomacy was reduced to a kind of cynical theatre, a pretence of useful
activity, a way of disguising a lack of will. Diplomacy without force became
an unloaded weapon, impotent and ridiculous.”Yet, on the other hand, the
diplomatic action for which Warren strived was meant always to improve
the enjoyment of rights throughout the world. Arthur Hartman, the former
US Ambassador to France and the Soviet Union with whom Warren served,
recalled him as “the fellow who always brought us back to the human
element of our jobs”.
Warren’s diplomatic marriage of action and compassion led to mounting
frustration while serving as the US envoy to Yugoslavia, a post that he held