Goplen, diplomat, political activist, dies

Thursday, March 10, 2005 | 9:23 a.m.

Although he worked in a diplomatic capacity smoothing over situations for more than a quarter of his life, Orville Goplen knew how to get people riled.

Calling himself a liberal activist, the former foreign service worker relished every opportunity he got to lash out at former Presidents George Bush and Ronald Reagan and the current President Bush for their conservative policies.

"He loved to get people's dander up," Goplen's wife of 27 years, Mary Goplen, said of her husband's prolific letter-to-the-editor writing that began when he was an 8-year-old North Dakota farm boy. "He got excited every time one of his letters got published or when someone wrote to respond to one of his letters."

Orville H. Goplen, a U.S. Information Agency officer whose duties included serving as press attache to Ralph Bunche and Martin Luther King Jr., when they were awarded their Nobel Peace Prizes, died Tuesday at Nathan Adelson Hospice-West. He was 93.

There will be no services for the Las Vegas resident of 15 years. Instead, his ashes will be spread in Norway, the birthplace of his ancestors.

In a 1996 letter to late Sun Chairman Mike O'Callaghan, Goplen wrote that he had lived "an interesting, eventful life." That included getting then-future President Harry Truman to get him tickets to the 1944 World Series.

As a sergeant in the Army during World War II, Goplen, a Democrat, met Truman on a train in Missouri. Goplen told the then-U.S. senator that he and a buddy were being sent overseas the next day and that they really wanted to see that day's St. Louis Cardinals-St. Louis Browns World Series game.

Truman made the arrangements for tickets and Goplen and his friend were in the stands for the game at Sportsman's Park.

Among Goplen's most treasured and sentimental possessions at his northwest Las Vegas home is a Dec. 18, 1944, letter from Truman, who wrote of the tickets, "glad you were able to use them." In a handwritten postscript, Truman wrote: "Also, hope you'll come home all in one piece."

Born Feb. 1, 1912, on a wheat farm in Hannaford, N.D., Goplen was the eldest of three sons of John Goplen and the former Anne Odegaard. He was educated in a one-room schoolhouse and worked on the staff of his high school newspaper.

While attending North Dakota Agricultural College -- now North Dakota State, Fargo -- Goplen was a reporter for the Fargo Forum newspaper and editor of his college paper. After graduation, he got his first government job as a ranger at Crater Lake National Park in Oregon.

During the war, Goplen served in Iran and and later for Armed Forces Radio in the China-Burma-India theatre, where he interviewed Madame Sun Yat-sen.

After the war, Goplen joined the U.S. Information Agency and was assigned to Norway, where in 1950 he assisted Bunche with lectures, receptions and news conferences related to his receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1964, Goplen performed similar functions for King when he received that award.

Goplen also did news media liaison work for President Lyndon B. Johnson and entertainer Danny Kaye when they visited Norway.

Goplen later served as a press attache in Germany and Iceland before retiring in 1973 to Coco Beach, Fla. There, he expanded on what had been a lifetime hobby of writing letters to newspapers, commenting on political topics. His letters were frequently published in the Sun after he moved here in 1990.

In his final letter to the Sun, published Sept. 8, 2004, Goplen lambasted President Bush for "mishandling the economy, which wiped out the Clinton surplus" and for starting a "revolting Vietnam-type war" in Iraq.

Goplen was a charter member of the Vegas Viking Sons of Norway.

In addition to his wife, Goplen is survived by twin sons, John Goplen and Richard Goplen, both of Florida, and a stepson Alan Bach, of Florida. He was preceded in death by his first wife Esther.

The family said donations can be made in Goplen's memory to Nathan Adelson Hospice, 3319 N. Buffalo Drive, Las Vegas, NV 89129.