Thomas Mann; Ex-Ambassador to Mexico, El Salvador

Thomas Clifton Mann, 87, former U.S. ambassador to Mexico and El Salvador. President Dwight D. Eisenhower named Mann ambassador to El Salvador in 1955, and he served until 1957. Eisenhower subsequently named him assistant secretary of economic affairs and then assistant secretary of Inter-American affairs. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy named Mann ambassador to Mexico, where he remained until 1964. President Lyndon B. Johnson then appointed Mann to three concurrent posts--assistant secretary for Inter-American affairs, special assistant to the president and coordinator of the Alliance for Progress. In 1965, Mann became undersecretary of state for economic affairs and a year later received the President’s Award for Distinguished Federal Service. Mann worked four years as president of the Automobile Manufacturers Assn. On Saturday in Austin, Texas.

John Frederick Nims; Poet, Teacher and Editor

John Frederick Nims, 85, poet, teacher, translator and editor of poetry anthologies. Nims wrote eight books of verse, edited Poetry magazine from 1978 to 1985 and was the editor of the “The Harper Anthology of Poetry.” His first book of poetry, “The Iron Pastoral,” appeared in 1947 and was greeted with favorable reviews. Born in Muskegon, Mich., Nims taught at Harvard University, the University of Chicago, University of Notre Dame and the University of Illinois at Chicago, among other places. He was the poetry judge at the National Book Awards in 1969. His work as a translator, specifically in “Sappho to Vallery,” a collection of poems translated from nine languages, was widely praised. “The range and powerful elegance of the verse translations in . . . ‘Sappho to Vallery’ has brought me back to them time and again over the years,” said John Hollander, Sterling professor of English at Yale University and chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. “His passing makes me feel that a part of the landscape has disappeared.” On Tuesday at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago.