Philip M. Kaiser | Former ambassador, 93

Philip M. Kaiser, 93, a former ambassador to Senegal who during the Cuban Missile Crisis acted to deny the Soviet Union landing rights at airports in the region where Russian planes might refuel, died Thursday in Washington, his family said.

Mr. Kaiser, a former assistant secretary of labor during the Truman administration, served as the U.S. ambassador to Senegal and Mauritania between 1961 and 1964. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, he persuaded the Senegalese president to deny landing rights to Soviet planes.

He had earlier accompanied Senegal's president, Leopold Sedar Senghor, on a visit to the White House, where he had a warm meeting with President John F. Kennedy. When Mr. Kaiser went to see the Senegalese president to ask him to deny the Soviets access to the airport at Dakar, the country's capital, Senghor agreed.

"Anything President Kennedy wants," Senghor said.

President Jimmy Carter named him ambassador to Hungary in 1977, and Mr. Kaiser played a key role in persuading the Carter administration to return the Crown of St. Stephen to Hungary in 1978. It had been in U.S. hands since 1945.

"We returned the crown. We got a trade agreement" giving Hungary favored trade status, Mr. Kaiser recalled in an interview at the Harry S. Truman Library. "We opened up the country to the West, and that relationship has continuously expanded." - AP