Looking for Our RPCV Ambassadors
Well I guess you'll have to limit it to career diplomats or some like category because from what I know…
Could you help me? We have many, many RPCV Ambassadors and I am trying to track down their names and Peace Corps countries, as well as, email addresses so I might interview them for an article about how PCVs have gone from their tours onto careers in the Foreign Service, much as JFK envisioned when he created the agency. Take a look at the list and send me your additional names as well as updates to the information I have collected. Write me at: jcoyneone@gmail.com . Many thanks for your help.
Charles C. Adams Jr., U.S. Ambassador to Finland (???), (PCV Kenya 1968 – 1970)
Frank Almaguer, U. S.Ambassador to Honduras (Belize 1967–1969)
Michael R. Arietti, U.S. Ambassador to Rwanda (India ?–?)
Charles R. Baquet III U.S. Ambassador to Republic of Djibouti (Somalia 1965-67)
Robert Blackwill, U. S. Ambassador to India (Malawi 1964 – 1966)
Richard Boucher, Deputy Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) from 2009 until 2013 (Senegal, 1973–75)
Peter Burleigh, U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka, and the Philippines (India?____)
Peter R. Chaveas U. S. Ambassador ???
Michael Corbin, U. S.Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates (Mauritania 1982–1984)
Michael Delisi U. S. Ambassador ???
Joseph R. Donovan Jr., U.S.Ambassador today to Indonesia (Korea ?–?)
Dan Foote U.S. Ambassador to Zambia (Bolivia PCV )
Gordon Gray III, U.S. Ambassador to Tunisia (Morocco 1978–1980
Bolivia PCV from 1964-1966
Robert S. Gelbard U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia from 1988-1991 (first PCV to return to Peace Corps country PCV 1964-66) Special Representative to the Balkans from 1997-1999, through the end of the Kosovo War later Ambassador to Indonesia from 1999-2001
David Greenlee U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia (Bolivia 1965-67)
Vicki Huddleston, US Ambassador to Mali and Madagascar, Charge de affaires to Haiti and Ethiopia, and Principal Officer to the US Interests Section in Havana (Peru 1964–66)
Christopher R. Hill, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq from 2009 to 2010 (Cameroon 1974–76)
Edmund Hull, U. S.Ambassador to Yemen (Tunisia, 1987–1990)
Darryl N. Johnson, U, S. Ambassador to Thailand (Thailand 1962–65)
Dean Pittman U.S. Ambassador ????
Stephen Schwartz U.S.Ambassador to Somalia (Cameroon 1981–1983)
Dane F. Smith U.S. Ambassador to (Guinea 1990-93) and Senegal (Senegal 1996-99) (PCV Ethiopia 1963-65)
Kathleen Stephens, U.S. Ambassador to South Korea (South Korea, 1975–77) and (PCV ?)
Christopher Stevens, U.S. Ambassador to Libya ( ??) (Morocco 1983–1985)
Victor L. Tomseth, U. S. Ambassador to Laos and hostage in the Iran hostage crisis
Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley, U.S. Ambassador to Malta (Oman ? – ?)
Eric Whitaker U.S. Ambassador currently in Niger (PCV ?)
I believe that Dane Smith was Ambassador to Ereitra. He was NCPA president and he accompanied the group that went to Iran in 2002,
Jennifer Seaver
Dane was a PCV in Eritrea, teaching in Asmara with his wife. He was in the PC group the year after I arrived as PCV with the first group to Ethiopia (1962) John
Holy Moly what a list!
I second that comment. I went to the memorial service San Francisco mounted for him in our City Hall. He was a local guy from here and his mom, his dad, his two sisters, and brother were there under the dome and a lot of dignitaries from the world wide diplomatic community. It was touching. There may have been other RPCV’s there in the crowd below and on the tiers of floors overlooking the great area. Brings a tear softening the memory. I am so happy I could be there to honor our folks wedged-in there amid an ominous group of black-suited men.
It was Christopher Stevens a PCV in Morocco 1983-85 AND later USA Ambassador to Libya where he died
REPORT FOR THE SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS:
Family, friends and colleagues attend a memorial for Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens at City Hall in San Francisco, Calif. on Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2012. Stevens, 52, and three other Americans were killed when militants attacked rhe American Consulate in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 11. Stevens attended Piedmont High School and UC Berkeley. (Jane Tyska/Staff)
By SCOTT JOHNSON | Bay Area News Group, Mercury News
PUBLISHED: October 16, 2012 at 10:03 am | UPDATED: August 13, 2016 at 2:11 am
SAN FRANCISCO — Several hundred mourners from around the world, including a former secretary of state, a former bishop of California and the Libyan ambassador to the United States, gathered in the elegant rotunda of San Francisco City Hall Tuesday to honor the life and work of former U.S. Ambassador John Christopher Stevens.
The memorial, called “A Celebration of Life,” included remembrances and appreciations by more than a dozen family members, former colleagues and government dignitaries, a video montage narrated by Stevens himself, as well as songs by the University of California Men’s Glee Club Alumni.
“He’s always been with me, he was my most important mentor,” said a younger sister, Anne Stevens Sullivan. “The world needs a lot more big brothers like Chris Stevens.”
ADVERTISING
“Christopher Stevens stood out as extraordinary in an already extraordinary group of people,” said former Secretary of State George P. Shultz. “Democracy is not a spectator sport, and Christopher Stevens was a full participant in his beloved democracy.”
Stevens and three other Americans were killed in a terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in the Libyan port city of Benghazi in the evening hours of Sept. 11, the 11-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Stevens and his staff had gone to the consulate to launch a Cultural Exchange Center when militants attacked the offices with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. He was the first American ambassador to be killed in the line of duty since 1979, when Ambassador Adolph Dubs was kidnapped by Islamic radicals in Kabul, Afghanistan, and later died during a firefight.
The memorial began with a U.S. Marine Corps Honor Guard “posting colors” ceremony and a rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner.” The Rev. William Swing said Stevens had perished in the “crucible flame of theocracy and democracy” that had swept across so much of the Middle East in the form of the Arab Spring that started in 2011. San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee spoke about how Stevens embodied an international spirit of peace and inclusion.
Anne Stevens Sullivan spoke about “how clever, how witty he was, how he made us smile.” She said her older brother was “mischievous” and told how he once set her bassinet on fire, led her off a hiking trail, and nicknamed her “chubs.” “So why do I miss him so much?” she asked, to gentle laughter.
A Bay Area native, Stevens was born to Mary and Jan Stevens in Grass Valley in 1960. He later moved to Piedmont, where he graduated from high school. Stevens showed an interest in the wider world from an early age, starting in high school when he traveled to Spain as part of an American Field Service exchange program. He went on to study languages and classics at UC Berkeley, graduating with a degree in history in 1982. He spent two years in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco teaching English as a Peace Corps volunteer. Stevens then attended law school at UC Hastings and worked as an attorney for two years.
But his appetite for foreign lands and different cultures had been whetted, and in 1992 Stevens joined the U.S. Foreign Service. His fluency in Arabic and French made him ideally suited for a career in North Africa and the Middle East, and over the next 20 years Stevens rose quickly through the ranks of the diplomatic corps.
A succession of increasingly important jobs took him to Cairo, Damascus, Jerusalem and, twice, to Tripoli. With the tumult of the Arab Spring, Stevens was tapped early on to become a liaison to the many fractious rebel groups vying for power in Libya for the duration of the revolution. With the death of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi and the eventual toppling of his regime, Stevens was named ambassador to Libya.
Among his many accomplishments, Stevens will no doubt be remembered for his heroic efforts during the nine long and bloody months of Libya’s revolution, a period when he was often the lone American representative on the ground.
By all accounts Stevens was passionate about the Middle East and Libya in particular. Virtually all the speakers said Stevens was always enthusiastic about his work overseas.
His friend Steven MacDonald said Chris embodied a “people-first diplomacy” that made the world a better place.
“There is no limit to what he did for Libyan people. He built the bridge between Libya and the United States, a strong bridge built of love,” said Ali Suleiman Aujali, Libya’s ambassador to the United States. “We lost a friend, a supporter and we lost a hero, and he’s part of the Libyan history, the Libyan revolution. We’ll never forget his name. I am sorry because you sent us one of your best diplomats but we were not able to protect him.”
Anne Stevens Sullivan said her brother had an insatiable curiosity, always talking to strangers and joking with vendors, and that he devoted as much time as possible to his family. He inspired his younger sister Hilary Stevens Koziol to join the Peace Corps.
Tom Stevens said his older brother was humble to a fault. “He had so many professional achievements that he never talked about, and you have to ask yourself what would the world be like if more people had the qualities he did — humble, calm, steady, relentlessly positive?”
“The world never saw a kinder, more resolute soul than Chris,” MacDonald said. “We feel so sad for the loss of Chris, but so lucky to have known him.”
SALUTE TO A HERO
Guest conductor David Commanday leads “Salute to a Hero” in honor of his late stepbrother, U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens, 7:30 p.m. Oct. 18, Lesher Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic Center Drive, Walnut Creek. Single tickets start at $35; season subscriptions start at $130. For details, call 925-943-7469 or go to http://www.californiasymphony.org.
J. Christopher Stevens American diplomat
John Christopher Stevens was an American career diplomat and lawyer who served as the U.S. Ambassador to Libya from May 22, 2012 to September 11, 2012.
Wikipedia
Born: April 18, 1960, Grass Valley
Died: September 11, 2012, Benghazi, Libya
Siblings: Tom Stevens, Anne Stevens
Education: University of California, Hastings College of the Law, MORE
Books: Positive Thoughts and More, MORE
Parents: Jan S. Stevens, Mary J. Stevens
Another twist on this: James Bullington was US Ambassador to Burundi (maybe 83-86) and later served as PCD in Niger (around 2000-2006).
Eric Whitaker, current US Ambassador to Niger, was a PCV in the Philippines.
Sue Rosenfeld
For those RPCVs who worked their way up the ladder, it would be great to read their PC memoirs (from whence it came). I do not mean a book which describes each of their foreign assignments within the State Department but rather a simple memoir of the PC experience based upon their own notes and/or journals, sprinkled with a retrospective on which experiences helped them later as ambassadors, like candied sprinkles on a chocolate cake.
When we talk about foreign service, do we include career diplomats or only presidential ambassador appointees? If the former, Bernard (AKA Bernie) Alter (India 45) served as Consul General in South India, and also held posts in Pakistan, South Korea (where he got in trouble for calling restrictions on visas “stupid”), and Toronto (I think). His career (with his RPCV Paraguay wife Pat) was quite distinguished.
Jane, I am thinking of career diplomats as well as other outstanding RPCVs in the State Department, those who made a difference after their Peace Corps tours working in foreign service roles.
Well I guess you’ll have to limit it to career diplomats or some like category because from what I know of so many former volunteers there would be not end of so much RPCVs have done and such good live lived. Maybe they would have been so fine even without the PC experience, but wow what a lot these have experienced and given to the world and right from the beginning when JOHN KENNEDY established the Peace Corps. Think of what you and Marian H Beil have done just in this idea you had of making a notion of a history of and by PC writers that would never have happened even as maybe you’d have done something else wonderful separately (but you
met in the Peace Corps more now than 50 years ago).