Thomas O. Enders

Thomas Ostrom Enders (November 28, 1931 – March 17, 1996) was an American diplomat.

Enders was born on November 28, 1931, in Hartford, Connecticut.

He was educated at Yale University, where he was a member of the Scroll and Key society, receiving a B.A. in 1953.

He received the Alpheus Henry Snow Prize awarded to the senior "who through the combination of intellectual achievement, character, and personality, shall be adjudged by the faculty to have done most for Yale by inspiring classmates with an admiration for scholarship" and the Warren Memorial High Scholarship Prize for the "highest academic rank for four years among B.A. candidates."

His father, Ostrom Enders, was president of the Hartford National Bank, and his uncle, John Franklin Enders, was the 1954 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine.

He attended the University of Paris, receiving a M.A. in 1955 and Harvard University, receiving a M.A. in 1957.

In 1958, Enders joined the United States Foreign Service as an intelligence research specialist.

From 1960 to 1963, he was a visa officer and then an economic officer in Stockholm.

From 1963, he was supervisory international economist at the Bureau of European Affairs.

In 1966, he was a special assistant in the Office of the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.

In 1968, he became Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Monetary Affairs.

From 1969, he was deputy chief of mission in Belgrade.

From 1971 to 1973, he held the same position in Phnom Penh.

On 27 September 1972 a booby-trap exploded in the car he was using.

He escaped injury, but two others were killed.

Henry Kissinger appointed Enders to the role of Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs in 1973.

Ender's job was to corral the allies into a common approach to the energy crisis and prevent bilateralism from gaining the upper hand.

The US spearheaded the International Energy Program (IEP) Agreement, underpinned by the International Energy Agency (IEA), which still exists today as a counterweight to OPEC.

In 1974, Enders became Assistant Under Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs.

To make the US appear more credible on the IEA, the 94th US Congress enacted the Energy Policy and Conservation Act in 1975.

It aimed to promote conservation, renewable and alternative energy resources.

Canada was a key piece of the energy supply puzzle, lying in between the lower 48 states and the Alaskan North Slope.

The US Government had chosen the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline System (TAPS) over the more efficient Trans-Canadian route, to avoid relying on Canada for such a vital resource.

TAPS routed the oil pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to the Port of Valdez, then requiring transport via tanker to west coast ports.

The Haida Nation, whose homeland is the Queen Charlotte Islands, protested that the passage of massively-laden oil tankers would create risks.

Keenly conscious of the unique culture of the Haida Nation, Enders managed to impose on the US maritime shipping industry a 100-mile tanker exclusion zone from Cape St John, at least for a period of time.

Enders was also an enthusiastic supporter of Canada's development of its own energy resources.

Enders felt that it made more sense to exploit the Alberta tar sands, for example, to serve proximate markets in the lower 48 than distant markets in Central and Eastern Canada.

This preference for North-South trade where manifestly more efficient became a common theme of his approach on coal and electricity, dovetailing with the economic interests of provincial premiers.

As ambassador to Canada, Enders set the stage for the historic CUSFTA: he fired up talk of free trade with Canada; he engaged policymakers, business people and Canadians in general in a future-oriented dialogue to define a shared North-American destiny, reversing Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's third option and East-West blueprint for Canada's economic development.

In 1976, US President Gerald Ford nominated Enders as United States Ambassador to Canada.

Enders held this post from February 17, 1976, to December 14, 1979.

Introducing himself in an interview with Bruce Philips on CTV on 11 April 1976, Enders said: "We think that the Canadian-American relationship is one that has a lot of opportunities as well as clearly some differences that have to be solved. I think that an activist approach to this is the word I would use about the kinds of missions that I've been given and the kind of person I expect to be here. This is necessary to ensure that we exploit those opportunities as well as try and resolve those differences so that the differences don't come to dominate the relationship."

Enders decided on an extensive outreach effort of speeches focussed on his 'missions': defence, energy, the environment and trade liberalisation.

From 1979 to 1981, he was United States Ambassador to the European Communities.

President Ronald Reagan nominated Enders as Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs; Enders held this office from June 23, 1981, to June 27, 1983.

Reagan then named Enders US Ambassador to Spain, with Enders presenting his credentials to the Spanish government on September 15, 1983, and representing the U.S. in Spain until July 6, 1986.

Enders retired in 1986.

He died in New York City on March 17, 1996.

He is buried in Waterford, Connecticut.