Who was Robin Raphel who died with Genral Zia Ul haq?

WASHINGTON, Aug. 17 — Arnold Lewis Raphel, the United States Ambassador to Pakistan who died today in a plane crash there, was frequently at the center of diplomatic crises in his 22-year career. Mr. Raphel, who was 45 years old, was a member of the special State Department group set up in 1979 to seek the release of the Americans seized by Iranian militants at the United States Embassy in Teheran and held hostage until early 1981. Warren M. Christopher, Deputy Secretary of State at that time, said today of Mr. Raphel, who was then the senior special assistant to Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance: ''He played an indispensable role in obtaining the release of the 52 hostages in Iran. His profound knowledge of the Iranians and his courage kept negotiations going on several occasions when they would otherwise have faltered.''

Mr. Raphel was also co-chairman of a 25-member interagency group set up in June 1985 to deal with the hijacking of TWA Flight 847. A United States Navy diver, Robert D. Stethem, was shot to death by a terrorist during the incident. At the time Mr. Raphel was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs. Hostage Move Opposed In that post he was one of a small number of State Department officials who became aware of the Reagan Administration's efforts to obtain the release of Americans held hostage by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon by selling arms covertly to Iran. ''He opposed it,'' a friend recalled today, ''but he didn't leak it.'' Mr. Raphel was appointed Ambassador to Pakistan in January 1987 and was deeply involved in diplomacy leading to the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan.

Most of his career in the Foreign Service, which he joined in 1966, was focused on Southwest Asia and the Middle East. After training in Farsi, the language of Iran, he was initially assigned to the United States Consulate in Isfahan and later as a political officer in the embassy in Teheran. He served as a political officer in the United States Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, from 1975 to 1978. Close associates of Mr. Raphel said his performance in the Teheran hostage crisis under Secretaries of State Vance and Edmund S. Muskie did nothing to enhance his career when the Reagan Administration took office in January 1981. He attended a departmental executive seminar in national and international affairs for more than a year. 'In the Doghouse' He was ''in the doghouse,'' a friend said, when he caught the eye of Adm. Jonathan T. Howe, then head of the State Department's Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs. He made Mr. Raphel his senior deputy in June 1982. That posting was followed by his return to the Near Eastern-South Asian Bureau. In that last Washington assignment, from 1984 to 1987, he earned a reputation as a sharp wit and an avid collector of artworks by relative unknowns. He also acknowledged being an incurable optimist, telling a journalist friend, ''How else can you do Mideast policy for so long.'' Arnold Raphel was born March 16, 1943, in Troy, N.Y., the son of Harry and Sarah Raphel, who now live in Atlantic City. He received a bachelor of arts degree from Hamilton College in 1964 and a master's degree from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University two years later. His brother Murray, of Atlantic City, recalled today in a telephone interview that as a boy his brother became an avid reader of National Geographic. A Letter From Dulles.

''When he was 10 years old he wrote John Foster Dulles, the Secretary of State, to ask him how he could get to see all those countries he was reading about,'' Murray Raphel said. ''Mr. Dulles wrote back that he should study hard and go to a college with an emphasis on foreign affairs and that he would then look forward to his entering the State Department. It was always my brother's goal to serve his country.'' Mr. Raphel married his third wife, the former Nancy Ely, who had worked in the State Department's legal affairs office, shortly before leaving for Pakistan. His second wife, Robin Raphel, is a Foreign Service officer stationed in Pretoria, South Africa. He is also survived by Stephanie Raphel, his daughter from his first marriage, who is a student at Oberlin College

PAST ROLE OF MS. ROBIN RAPHEL

Gaining Support To U.S. Diplomats A Rosy Picture American officials like Robin Raphel, the top State Department official dealing directly with matters involving Afghanistan, have placed heavy emphasis on the hope that contacts with the new rulers in Kabul will encourage them to soften their policies, especially toward women. They also say that the United States sees the Taliban, with its Islamic conservatism, as the best, and perhaps the only, chance that Afghanistan will halt the poppy growing and opium production that have made Afghanistan, with an estimated 2,500 tons of raw opium a year, the world’s biggest single-country source of the narcotic. A similar argument is made on the issue of the network of international terrorists, many of them Arabs, who have set up bases inside Afghanistan. But as the Taliban consolidate their power in Kabul, the signs of cooperation are not strong. In the week before Christmas, as bitterly cold winds from the 20,000-foot Hindu Kush mountains swept down on Kabul, senior Taliban officials seemed to be in a more pugnacious mood than in October, when a counteroffensive by the Rabbani and Dostum forces came within 10 miles of Kabul. REFERENCE: REFERENCE: “How Afghanistan’ s Stern Rulers Took Power,” New York Times, December 31, 1996 by JOHN F. BURNS and STEVE Levine - FRIDAY, MARCH 19, 2010