William H. Luers, a summer Island resident across four decades, career diplomat, and former president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, died Saturday at his home in Washington Depot, Conn. He was 95.
Luers, born and raised in Springfield, Ill., dedicated his life to advancing democracy, arts, and culture. Through a nearly 30-year career in the U.S. Foreign Service, he is known for supporting and protecting dissident and writer Vaclav Havel, who became Czechoslovakia’s president in 1989 through the country’s dissolution, and then the first president of the Czech Republic.
He has been honored by obituaries in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and by his alma mater, Hamilton College.
In a statement to The Times, Wendy Luers reflected on the artistic community that brought Bill and her extended family to the Island: “Bill and I have been summer people on the Vineyard since 1980,” she said. “We came to the Island because of Rose and Bill Styron. Through them we met many of the writers who visited us when Bill was ambassador to Caracas and Prague. They were effective and exciting cultural diplomats, especially with the dissidents in Prague in the mid-’80s, a time of deep communism, which protected them — especially Vaclav Havel … The Vineyard was our happy place, where we brought our blended family together in Vineyard Haven and Black Point.”
Wendy confirmed that the cause of Luers’ death was prostate cancer. He is also survived by children David, William, and Amy, stepdaughters Ramsay and Connor Turnbull, five grandchildren, and five step-grandchildren.
Toward the end of his diplomatic career in 1983, Luers arrived on assignment in Czechoslovakia shortly after Havel — a playwright known internationally for works critical of the country’s communist government — had been released from a four-year sentence as a political prisoner.
Luers played a key role in protecting Havel from secret police through the mid-’80s, largely by gaining the writer worldwide attention and sympathy. Luers did this by tapping dozens of celebrities from the U.S. to meet Havel and speak about his leadership at press conferences. The celebrities included author Kurt Vonnegut, Washington Post Publisher Katharine Graham, and abstract painter Richard Diebenkorn.
Though Luers ended his ambassadorship in 1986, Havel remained a leading figure in Czech politics. He became his country’s president in 1989 amid the peaceful Velvet Revolution against the communist government and was the first president of its successor state, the Czech Republic.
After leaving Czechoslovakia Luers remained a promoter of culture as president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, sharing its leadership with Philippe de Montebello, one of the celebrities whom he had enlisted to visit Havel. Luers led the museum for 13 years and is credited with doubling its endowment, according to the New York Times.
Luers would go on to serve as chairman and president of the U.N. Association of the U.S.A., which provides services for the U.N. He also directed the Iran Project, a nongovernmental organization that supported negotiations between the U.S. and Iran.
He also worked as an educator, teaching at Princeton and Columbia universities and at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. He was a prolific contributor to foreign policy journals and newspapers, and released his memoir, “Uncommon Company: Dissidents and Diplomats, Enemies and Artists,” last fall.
