Frederic L. Chapin

Frederic Lincoln Chapin (July 13, 1929 – September 8, 1989) was a United States diplomat. He was the ambassador to Ethiopia and Guatemala.

Early life Chapin was born in New York City on July 13, 1929. He was the son of Mary Paul (née Noyes) Chapin (1902–1984) and Selden Chapin (1899–1963), who served as the United States Ambassador to the Netherlands, Peru and Iran, who married in 1927. His sister was Helen Chapin (1928–2011), who married Ronald Irwin Metz (1921–2002) in 1951.

His maternal grandparents were Helen (née Humpstone) Noyes and Winchester Noyes, the president of J. H. Winchester & Company, an international shipping brokerage firm. His cousin Hope Cooke (b. 1940), who was a ward of his parents following the death of her parents, married King Palden Thondup Namgyal (1923–1982) in 1961 and became the Queen of Kingdom of Sikkim until their divorce in 1980. She later married Mike Wallace. His paternal grandparents were Frederic Lincoln Chapin (1863–1913) and Grace Card (née Selden) Chapin (1864–1941).

Chapin attended St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, Following his service in Chad, he was a special assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, W. Averell Harriman, until 1965. where Ethiopia requested the withdrawal of Chapin.

Following his service in Ethiopia, he was a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, charged with international security affairs in Latin America. In 1981, he was the interim charge d'affaires in the American Embassy in El Salvador after the removal of Ambassador Robert E. White. On July 30, 1981, Chapin was appointed by President Ronald Reagan as the U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala, to succeed Frank V. Ortiz, Jr. He presented his credentials on September 3, 1981, and served until February 28, 1984, when he left his post.

Until his retirement from the Foreign Service, with the rank of career minister, in 1988, he served as a senior inspector in the State Department.

Personal life On August 2, 1952, Chapin was married to Cornelia Bonner Clarke (1931–1990) at the Christ Episcopal Church in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Together, they were the parents of one son and three daughters: John Chapin, Anne Chapin, Edith Chapin, and Grace Selden Chapin,

Chapin died of cancer at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland on September 8, 1989.