WALKER, Richard L(ouis) 1922-2003

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born April 13, 1922, in Bellefonte, PA; died of cancer July 22, 2003, in Columbia, SC. Educator, diplomat, and author. Walker, a professor of international relations and an expert on the Far East, was a former ambassador to South Korea. After graduating from Drew University in 1944 and studying Chinese at the University of Pennsylvania, he served as an interpreter during World War II at the U.S. Army's Pacific headquarters. He then went back to school to earn a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1950. That same year he joined the faculty at Yale, where he was an assistant professor of history until 1957, when he moved to the University of South Carolina. He spent most of the rest of his career with that institution as a professor of international relations, heading the department from 1957 to 1972. Walker also founded the Institute of International Studies in 1961. In 1981 President Ronald Reagan selected Walker to be U.S. ambassador to South Korea, a position Walker held until 1986, when he returned to the University of South Carolina, retiring as professor emeritus in 1992. During his career Walker lectured around the world, including at schools in Taiwan, Japan, and China. He was the author or editor of over a dozen books about Asia, among them China under Communism: The First Five Years (1955), The China Danger (1966), The Human Cost of Communism in China (1971), and Korean Remembrances (1998).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Los Angeles Times, July 25, 2003, p. B15.

New York Times, July 24, 2003, p. A21.

Washington Post, July 26, 2003, p. B7.