A Lucky Staar

By Jessica Grinspan ’05

Blessed with a keen memory for detail and a studious mind, Richard Staar ’48 fondly remembers the nights when his fraternity brothers would pack into his room and, eager to assist, he would share his copious knowledge as the group crammed for Prof. Herbert Wing’s world-history exams.

“I always enjoyed doing it,” Staar reminisces. “I’ve always tried to help other people, to give back what was given to me.”

What was given to Staar? A lucky star—a guiding light that has never ceased to shine on him, he says.

Growing up, Staar had a more difficult journey than most. Born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1923, Staar moved to the United States when he was 11 months old, and it was here that he was reared and educated until he was 12. Then his father resolved to return to Poland.

“But I had never learned Polish, so I was placed in the fifth grade at the elementary school,” Staar explains. “The Polish language is so hard. It was a really tough experience, and I never thought I belonged in Europe. I always dreamt of the United States.”

When Staar was 16, World War II broke out, ending his chance to complete high school. Instead, he spent six months in a German prison and the rest of his time in internment camps or hiding from the Gestapo. Once, while in prison, he was beaten so brutally that his eardrum was permanently shattered.

“People were dying left and right,” he remembers. “Warsaw was about 90 percent destroyed. It was a very dangerous time.”

But Staar insists that it could have been much worse, that his lucky star was shining all along.

“Why is it that I didn’t end up in a death camp?” he asks. “I think if my fate meant for me to be caught and killed, it would have happened. Something up there was definitely looking out for me.”

And so were Hania and Gaither Warfield ’17, Methodist missionaries who offered their home in Warsaw as a refuge for the young Staar.

“I was just a poor kid hiding from the Gestapo,” Staar reminisces. “They were very compassionate people. If not for them, I don’t think I would have survived.”

It was with the Warfields’ assistance that Staar applied to Dickinson College after the war ended, and he and the couple returned to the United States.

“The problem was, I hadn’t been able to finish school, so I didn’t have a high-school diploma,” Staar explains. “But I didn’t tell Dickinson that I never graduated. I just said that my school records got lost during the war.”

What Staar did have was a letter of acceptance from the University of London, which had offered entrance exams to British and American internees at Internierungslager VII-Z, a camp in Laufen, Germany, where Staar had been held. This letter, as well as a personal recommendation from Gaither Warfield, was enough to gain admission to Dickinson.

“It’s amazing that it all worked out,” says Staar. “Again, something up there was helping me. It was just one miracle after another.”

Staar speaks fondly of his time at Dickinson, where he, like Warfield, belonged to Kappa Sigma fraternity. “I was in heaven, really,” he says. “I just had this feeling of coming into paradise. The war was hell, and this was heaven.”

“People helped me a lot,” he recalls of his college experience. “The atmosphere there was unusual. Professors took a special interest in the students. Their doors were always open.”

Staar graduated with honors and a degree in political science. He has since given back to the college by establishing the Hania and Gaither Warfield Scholarship, which is awarded to international-studies majors who have demonstrated leadership skills.

“I’m doing this because of my gratitude to Dickinson,” he explains. “I don’t think I would have done as well afterward without my fantastic education there.” He went on to earn an M.A. from Yale University and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. In 1998 Dickinson awarded him an honorary doctor of political science.

Now a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, a think tank committed to research in international affairs, Staar has held professorships in political science at Emory University and, more recently, San Jose State University. From 1981 to 1983, he led the United States delegation at disarmament talks in Vienna.

“It was an experience I definitely benefited from,” Staar remarks of his term as an ambassador. “We were meeting several times a week with the Russians. Just being exposed to all of that, I think I learned a lot.”

A prolific writer, Staar recounts some of his extraordinary life experiences in his most recent major work, a semi-autobiographical book titled—quite aptly—Born Under a Lucky Star.

“Several people suggested that my background might be of interest,” Staar explains. “There were many situations where I truly believe that something was looking out for me—whether God, providence, maybe fate.”

“It dawned on me that I have an obligation to help other people,” he continues. “This is the most important lesson I’ve learned throughout my life. If everybody felt this way, we’d have a better world.”

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