PAUKER, Guy J(ean) 1916-2002

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born September 15, 1916, in Bucharest, Rumania; died September 4, 2002, in Los Angeles, CA. Educator, government advisor, and author. Pauker was a well-known expert on southeast Asian politics who often worked as a consultant to the U.S. government. Born in Rumania, he studied at the University of Bucharest where he received a doctorate in political and economic science in 1946, the same year he also earned a law degree and was admitted to the Bucharest Bar. While working as an editorial writer on foreign affairs for a Rumanian journal during the 1940s, Pauker served as secretary general of the Romanian Institute of International Affairs, cofounded the organization Friends of the U.S., and edited the journal Russian-American Review. When the Communist-led government shut down the journal and began exerting more control over public affairs, he moved to the United States in 1948 and attended Harvard University. There Pauker earned a master's degree in 1950 and a Ph.D. in 1952 in social science, and taught at Harvard during the early 1950s. He later taught political science at the University of California at Berkeley, where he also chaired the Center for Southeast Asian Studies from 1956 to 1960. In 1960 he joined the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California, as head of the Asian section of the social science department. There he studied the political affairs of southeast Asian countries, was the author of influential reports, and became an adviser several government bodies, including the National Security Council, the Department of Defense, the State Department, the House Committee on International Affairs, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and the National War College. Pauker served in this function during the height of the Vietnam War and other crises in southeast Asia. Toward the end of his career, he was also a research associate for the East-West Center of the Resource Systems Institute in Hawaii. Pauker retired in 1982 but for years afterward was consulted by journalists and politicians for his expert opinions. During his career he was the author of over one hundred reports and books, including Human Values in Social Change in South and Southeast Asia and the United States (1956) and Military Implications of a Possible World Order Crisis in the 1980s (1977).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

periodicals

Los Angeles Times, September 16, 2002, p. B9; November 6, 2002, p. A2.

Washington Post, September 17, 2002, p. B7.