Lord Harold Caccia; British Diplomat to Washington

Lord Harold Caccia, 84, a former British ambassador to Washington. Caccia, described by contemporaries as one of the most skilled and effective British diplomats of his generation, was assigned to Washington from 1956 to 1961 to restore confidence after the crisis over the short-lived invasion of the Suez Canal region. Britain was severely criticized over the Anglo-French-Israeli invasion that same year, a response to Egypt’s nationalization of the strategic waterway. Upon his retirement in 1965, he was made Baron Caccia and became director to a number of companies. He also became provost of Eton College. The Caccia family originated in Tuscany--it is mentioned in Canto 29 of Dante’s Purgatory--and settled in England in the early 19th Century. The British Foreign Office said over the weekend that Caccia died Oct. 31 in Builth Wells, Wales, but did not give the cause of death.