Frederic Pryor

Frederic LeRoy Pryor (April 23, 1933 – September 2, 2019) was an American economist. While studying in Berlin during the partition of the city in 1961, he was imprisoned in East Germany for six months, then released in a Cold War "spy swap" that also involved downed American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers and Soviet intelligence officer Rudolf Abel. He spent the bulk of his career as a member of the Swarthmore College faculty, as a professor of economics.

Early life and education Frederic LeRoy Pryor In August 1961, days after the Berlin Wall was erected, he visited East Berlin to deliver a copy of his dissertation to a professor there, and to contact a friend's sister, an engineer who – unknown to Pryor – in violation of East German law, had just fled to West Germany. Pryor's cell was directly above an East German torture room. as a result of negotiations conducted by James B. Donovan. Pryor was not consulted for the film, about which he commented, "It was good. But they took a lot of liberties with it."

Pryor worked as an economic advisor in Ukraine and Latvia, was employed as a consultant to the World Bank in Africa, served as a Research Director to the Pennsylvania Tax Commission, and was a research associate at both the Hoover Institution in Palo Alto, California, and the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. He twice served as judge of elections, a local elected position in Pennsylvania. He won research grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Council of Soviet and East European Studies, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He served as a trustee at historically black colleges such as Miles College, Wilberforce University, and Tougaloo College.

Personal life On March 26, 1964, Pryor married Zora Prochazka, who was also an economist. They remained together until her death in 2008.

Pryor died on September 2, 2019, in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, where he had lived the final 11 years of his life. He was survived by his son and three grandchildren.

Works

Pryor, Frederic L. (1985). A Guidebook to the Comparative Study of Economic Systems. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc. .