David Everett Mark, 81; Ex-Ambassador, State Dept. Official
David Everett Mark, 81, a former U.S. ambassador to Burundi and deputy assistant secretary of State who after retiring went to work as a professor, died in a car accident Saturday while on vacation in Montana, his son said.
A native New Yorker, Mark joined the Foreign Service in 1946, serving in South Korea, Finland, Romania and Moscow.
In 1959, he moved to Geneva, where he joined the delegation to the Test Ban Treaty negotiations. He served as ambassador to Burundi from 1974 to 1977. Two years later he was named deputy assistant secretary of State, a post he held until 1981.
Mark, a graduate of Columbia University School of Law, was fluent in Russian, German and French. With the breakup of the Soviet Union, he helped establish the American Embassy in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia and helped the new government in writing its constitution.
For the last 15 years, Mark served as an active member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City and was an adjunct professor of global affairs at New York University.
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