Richard M. Hooper , 40, died in the Aug. 19 terrorist attack on the United Nations headquarters building in Baghdad. The blast killed 23 people. Hooper, known to most as Rick, was on a temporary assignment for the office of political affairs.
He was born in Walnut Creek, Calif., and raised in Boise, Idaho. He graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz; garnered a Fulbright fellowship to study Arabic in Ramallah, Damascus, and Cairo; and earned a Masters in Arab Studies at Georgetown University.
Hooper was a political activist who worked on the 1980 reelection campaign of the last Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho, and in the office of then Sen. Al Gore. He served an internship with the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights.
He began work for the UN more than a decade ago, in the Gaza Strip, and advanced to become chief of staff to Keiran Prendergast, the UN undersecretary-general for political affairs. The United Nations considered him one of its leading Arab experts.
Hooper had arrived in Baghdad only a week earlier, to temporarily replace the UN's top official in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello while he was on leave. The pair were among those killed in the blast. Colleagues praised the brilliance, warmth, and dedication of both.
Manhattan photographer Robert Zash was Hooper's lover for five years; the two split up at the end of last year. He told the New York Blade, ' [ Rick Hooper ] was the most fearless person I've ever met. He would go headlong into risk in place where people were so afraid to go. He was so incredibly selfless. There is not question that this world is a significantly better place because he was here. He's touched millions of people and they don't even know it.'
'The staff of DPA [ Department of Political Affairs ] deeply mourns the tragic death of Rick Hooper, our friend and colleague ... We recall with deep affection the brilliance of his mind, the intensity of his commitment, and his passion for his work,' the group's Web site stated. 'Rick devoted his professional life to achieving a vision of a world with justice, equality and peace. He had worked in the fields of human rights, development, politics, conflict resolution, and post-conflict reconstruction. His greatest passion, however, was the Arab world, where he served with UNRWA in the Gaza Strip, and then with Terje Roed-Larsen, the UN's Special Coordinator in the Middle East. He was fluent in colloquial Arabic.'
'In his role as Special Assistant to USG Prendergast, Rick felt fortunate to be in a position where he could contribute to policymaking,' the Web site said. 'He was an open-eyed critic of the UN, but was also among its most dedicated staff. Rick was sometimes impatient, but only with injustice ... . Perhaps the greatest testament to Rick's talent ... is the large number of colleagues here and around the world who counted themselves among his closest friends.'
