From Guest Columnist Tom Brannan
During the interim until a permanent Executive Director is found, this space will feature an occasional writer other than President Angela Dickey. This month, Tom Brannan, who as former Public Outreach Committee chair founded the DACOR mentoring program, gives us a status report on that critical initiative.
In the summer of 2019, when DACOR took its first steps toward launching a pilot mentoring partnership with George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, those of us involved in recruiting DACOR volunteers and matching them with first-year graduate students in GWU’s Asia Studies Program had modest aspirations. It did not take long for that to change.
Today, six years later, DACOR’s mentoring initiative has grown. And looking ahead, the mentoring program will have to contend with the ongoing turbulence buffeting foreign affairs agencies and universities.
In 2021, the Elliott School program grew to include graduate students in the International Development Studies Program (IDSP), a heavily enrolled and thriving incubator for USAID and NGO careerists. That same year, the DACOR mentoring program added a cohort of undergraduate students enrolled in the Global Studies curriculum at the University of the District of Columbia, one of 50 public HBCUs in the U.S. Last month, DACOR and UDC reached agreement on a threeyear extension to the mentoring partnership.
What began as a single pilot project in 2019 enrolling fewer than 20 Asia Studies students in GWU’s Elliott School has grown today into a two-university program enrolling a total of 51 students: 39 graduate students from GWU’s Asia Studies Program led by Professor Gregg Brazinsky and DACOR mentoring coordinators George Hogeman and John Maher, and the International Development Studies Program led by Professor Sean Roberts and DACOR mentoring coordinator Tom Staal; and 12 undergraduates in the Global Studies program at UDC, led by Professors Jason Giannaros and Jasmine Yarish, both DACOR members. Over the course of the program’s six-year history, total mentor-mentee pairings have exceeded 180.
Both universities’ mentoring programs continue to measure success one student at a time. This cooperative venture into “experiential learning” relies on each mentor-mentee pairing being able to find time in busy schedules to talk through the challenges that go with living and working abroad and charting new careers in government service. Embedded in both programs is a heavy dose of mentor encouragement to seek out fellowships and internships.
Unfortunately, in recent months, such opportunities have been curtailed or paused. According to ProFellow, as of March 19 two USAID fellowships have been terminated (the Payne and the International
Continued on page 10.
Co-Sponsored by DACOR & Chevron
Amb. JOSE MANUEL ROMUALDEZ
Philippine Ambassador to the U.S. thE U.s. - PhiliPPinE RElAtiOnshiP
Join us for a luncheon with the Philippine Ambassador to the U.S. Jose Manuel Romualdez. Ambassador Romualdez will share his perspectives on U.S.-Philippine relations, and on maritime tensions in the South China Sea.
Amb. Jose Manuel Romualdez was first appointed by then-President Rodrigo Duterte in 2017. He was re-appointed in 2022 by current Philippine President Ferdinand Romauldez Marcos, Jr. A veteran leading journalist, publisher and executive in Manila, Amb. Romualdez has led business delegations to the United States, Japan and other countries since the late 1980s. He still writes a widely read column in the Philippine Star.
DACOR Bacon House Bicentennial
Archivist, DACOR Bacon House
Dr. JASMINE NOELLE
YARISH
Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of the District of Columbia
Dr. TERENCE WALZ
Historian, DACOR Bacon House DACOR BACOn hOUsE As CEntER stAgE FOR "thE WAshingtOn sAlOn": hOW WOmEn ExERCisED inFlUEnCE in 19th AnD 20th CEntURy WAshingtOn
Virginia Murray Bacon, who owned the DACOR Bacon House from 1925 to 1980, was a celebrated salonniere, hosting politicians, diplomats, opera divas and European royalty at her receptions, dinners and soirees. In fact, for much of its history the House was owned and managed by women, inlcuding Sally Carroll, Mollie Fuller, and Ruth Hanna McCormick in addition to Virginia Murray Bacon, who exercised significant influence in official and social Washington from their interior drawing rooms despite limitations on their ability to hold public office or live independent lives. Our panelists will take an in-depth look at how these women made their presence—and DACOR Bacon House itself—known during a time of significant changes in women’s rights and freedoms during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The panel will include Elizabeth Warner, Archivist, DACOR Bacon House; Dr. Jasmine Noelle Yarish, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of the District of Columbia; and Dr. Terrence Walz, Historian, DACOR Bacon House.
Full bios may be found in the online program announcement.
Ms. CHRISTINA HILLSBERG
Author; former CIA Intelligence Officer
AgEnts OF ChAngE: thE WOmEn WhO tRAnsFORmED thE CiA
Join DACOR for a conversation with Christina Hillsberg on her new book Agents of Change Years after her successful and impactful career at the CIA, Hillsberg became enthralled with the stories of the trailblazing women who forged new paths within the Agency long before she began her career there in the aughts. These were women who sacrificed their personal lives, risked their safety, defied expectations, and boldly navigated the male-dominated spy organization.
Through exclusive interviews with current and former female CIA officers, many of whom have never spoken publicly, Agents of Change tells an enthralling and, at times, disturbing story set against the backdrop of the evolving women’s movement. It was the 1960s, a “secretarial” era, when women first gained a foothold and pushed against the one-dimensional, pop-culture trope of the sexy Cold War Bond Girl. Underestimated but undaunted, they fought their way, decade-by-decade, through adversity to the top of the spy game.
Hillsberg takes readers inside the Agency in a way that’s never been done before, paying long overdue tribute to the survivors and thrivers, the indispensable groundbreakers, and defiant rabble-rousers who made the choice to change their lives and in turn, changed history. A full bio may be found in the online program announcement.
DACOR FielD TRip TO
Join fellow DACOR members for a field trip to the Delaware Antiques Show at Winterthur. The $70 registration includes train fare, Uber fare, and show exhibit. Meals / snacks / drinks will be self-pay.
The Delaware Antiques Show is A Winterthur Tradition. One of the nation’s most highly acclaimed antiques shows, it presents a spectacular showcase of art, antiques, and design! Featuring the finest offerings from more than sixty distinguished dealers, the Delaware Antiques Show highlights the best of American antiques and decorative arts.
A schedule and additional information may be found in the online event announcement.
DACOR BACOn hOUsE BiCEntEnniAl EvEnts SAVE THAT DATE!
The Bicentennial Year was launched by Bicentennial Honorary Chair Ambassador Thomas Shannon and President Angela Dickey on August 6, 2024, with a celebration of “200 Years of French Connections,” featuring H. E. Laurent Bili, the French Ambassador to the U.S.
Upcoming Bicentennial Programs
June 10, 2025, 6-9 PM, Evening Garden Party
200th anniversary celebration featuring VIP Speakers and a musical performance by The Washington Tattoo.
October 30, 2025, 6 - 8:30 PM, Dinner and Talk
“DACOR Bacon House and the Civil War; or Reveille in Washington Revisited”
The Carroll family, owners of DACOR Bacon House during 60 years of the 19th century, were one among many local families that contributed men, women and morale to the war effort.
December 7, 2025, 3 - 5 PM, Music Performance
Christmas Musicale
Including a performance of the “Esterhazy Ripple”, a waltz dedicated to our own Sally Carroll, the Countess Esterhazy, and other music performed in the house.
Bicentennial Program Co-chairs: Meredith Whiting and Terry Walz
Bicentennial Garden Party Chair: Dana Linnet
Continued from page 3.
Development Graduate fellowships). Also, the Gelman and Fullbright Hayes International scholarships have been paused; the State Department’s Clarke Diplomatic Security and the Information Technology fellowships have been paused; State’s summer internship program and the Presidential Management Fellows program have been cancelled. The Payne Fellowship was terminated for those selected for the next round and for all the students currently in graduate school; and the Capital Hill internship for Rangel Fellows has been deferred for a year.
The challenges next academic year will be driven largely by enrollments at DACOR’s partner universities. “The current career landscape requires students to adopt a realistic perspective about the wrecking ball that has hit the federal workspace,” said Jim Wylde, a DACOR member and former director of Career and Graduate Student Services at the Elliott School. “They also need to be hopeful in working with their mentors to develop new pathways for service. Mentors have experienced crises and change in their careers and can offer wisdom. Among the career strategies that will be useful: strengthen professional networks, both in-person and online; stay informed through posts and podcasts as agencies restructure and define new needs; follow the emergence of AI and the role of technology; and explore federal intersections with the private sector and philanthropy.” And most assuredly, “mentorship offers an ideal relationship in which to explore career possibilities.”
Solid advice for students and mentors.
Tom Brannan
In early June, DACOR will begin recruiting and registering its team of mentors for the new academic year. The online registration process is both easy and quick. Current as well as past and new mentors are required to register. We use the information mentors provide to complete the matching process in late summer. Look for information in the DACOR Bulletin on how to access the online registration system.
A Rave Review
Dear Meg,
I am writing to express my deepest gratitude for the extraordinary event you helped us to host for our President of Gonzaga University at the DACOR Bacon House. The occasion was nothing short of spectacular, and it is all thanks to you and your wonderful team.
From the initial planning stages to the day of the event, every detail was handled with the utmost professionalism and care. The atmosphere at the DACOR Bacon House was warm and inviting, and the elegance of the venue added a special touch to our gathering. It was clear that every member of your team is dedicated to excellence and takes immense pride in their work.
Our guests were thoroughly impressed with the seamless coordination and the impeccable service provided. The compliments we received about the event are a testament to your exceptional efforts. The evening truly highlighted the beautiful partnership and the shared vision between Gonzaga University and the DACOR Bacon House.
We are profoundly grateful for the incredible work you all put into making this event a success. Your kindness, attention to detail, and unwavering support made it an unforgettable experience for everyone involved. Please extend our heartfelt thanks to each member of your team.
Thank you once again for making this event a resounding success. We look forward to future opportunities to collaborate with you and your exceptional team.
Warmest regards,
Andrea Kalochristianikas Chapter Leader, Gonzaga University Washington, DC
Hold Your Event at the Historic DACOR Bacon House!
Our beautiful, 200 year old home is an ever popular setting for member sponsored events. Contact the events team to secure your preferred dates today.
Director of Events Meg Sharley msharley@dacorbacon.org
202.682.0500 x120
Events Coordinator Sylvia Whitaker events@dacorbacon.org
202.682.0500 x125
200 yEARs OF DACOR BACOn hOUsE histORy
DACOR Bacon House is celebrating its bicentennial year 2024-2025 with a series of programs that highlight important events in the house’s history and the contributions its occupants made to our nation’s capital and to our national history. We have divided the two-hundred-year period into significant eras. For this month, May 2025, we explore the period Alice Copley Thaw owned the house, including its various tenants.
Terry Walz, DACOR Historian
Elizabeth Warner, DACOR Archivist
1911-1925
The Gilded Age and Emerging Rights of Women
1911
Alice Copley Thaw bought DACOR Bacon House from the estate of Chief Justice Melville Fuller who died in 1910. In 1911 she hired the fashionable architect Henri Jules de Sibour to modernize the house. As described in the Historic Structure Report prepared by Beyer Blinder Belle and found at our website, https://tinyurl.com/DBHHSR1, he installed electric lights in the house, enhanced the dining room and the Garden room, installed new baths and toilets, and replaced old radiators. He also was asked to modernize the carriage house by installing cement floors and making a bedroom and bathroom on the second floor – i.e. living quarters for a chauffeur. In 1912, Alice bought the first automobile to be housed in the carriage house, a Peerless 38-Six.
1913
The Woman’s Suffrage Procession, the first major demonstration for women’s voting rights in the capital, took place on March 3, 1913, on the eve of Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration. Alice Copley Thaw hosted the Hon. Mrs. Basil Hanbury for the event, and she stayed on in Washington with Ms. Thaw until Alice left for Georgia to be remarried. For more on the visit, see the posting on the DACOR Bacon House Academic Library: https://www.dacorbacon.org/ docs/Suffragist_in_Washington_in_
March_1913.pdf.
Alice Copley Thaw, now Mrs. Geoffrey Whitney, left Washington after her marriage to live with her husband outside Boston, and she let the house out. The first renter was Adolph Miller, assistant secretary of the interior and director of the Bureau of National Parks; later he became chairman of the newly established Federal Reserve Board. In 1913, construction of the General Services Administration building began, a huge undertaking that stretched the entire length of the south side of F Street between 18th and 19th Streets. It took two years to build and cost $2.7 million. The noise from the construction site was so great that Miller moved out in 1915 and rented the house on S Street designed by Waddy Woods, later the home of the Textile Museum.
The General Services Administration, constructed in 1913-1917, Image: GSA.gov
To be continued in the June edition . . .
1919
In November, Senator Medill McCormick of Illinois and his wife Ruth Hanna McCormick and three children moved into the house. As the Evening Star reported, “this new home is one of the landmarks of Washington and is known as the William T. Carroll house. It was the home of the late Chief Justice Fuller.” Ruth McCormick continued her famous Sunday evening “informal buffets” – for which she became famous in Washington – where the supper was served “in the English fashion from the sideboard, where delicious Smithfield hams, or a cold roast or fowl – in fact, many good things – will be placed so the guest can help themselves.”
Calvin Coolidge, when vice president, was a guest at one of these buffets in 1923. Ruth Hanna McCormick learned politics from her father, Mark Hanna, later Senator from Ohio, and managed the second campaign of her husband Medill McCormick. She
ran successfully for a House seat in 1928. See the posting on the DACOR Bacon House Academic Library, https://www.dacorbacon.org/docs/ The_McCormicks.pdf.
1923
The Evening Star reported in November 1923, “Representative and Mrs. Robert Low Bacon, who have taken over the lease of the fine old mansion in 18th and F Streets from Senator and Mrs. Medill McCormick, have been occupying it for brief intervals for a month. The house is beautifully furnished by the owner [Mrs. Alice Thaw Whitney], from handsome furniture which came from the Thaw home in Pittsburgh…It has a long and brilliant social history during the tenancy of the late Chief Justice Fuller. Mr. and Mrs. Bacon have brought many handsome drapings, rugs, and choice bric-a-brac from their home near Westbury, and will enter energetically into the amenities of the winter."
Ruth Hanna McCormick, the first woman in politics to be featured on a cover of Time Magazine, shortly after she won her House seat in 1928.
WORLD AFFAIRS TRAVEL PROGRAM
Cultural Capitals of Spain: Madrid & Barcelona led by Derrick Olsen
Bhutan & Nepal: The Remote Land and the Kingdom of Happiness
Expert-led tours focused on international affairs Travel with cultural diplomacy enthusiasts
Exclusive tour access for DACOR members
DACOR, Inc is partnering with World Affairs Council of Philadelphia to offer exclusive travel experiences with VIP access to DACOR Members and Friends of the Historic DACOR Bacon House Traveling with World Affairs directly supports the DACOR Bacon House Foundation
LEARN MORE
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Albuquerque
Call for Nominations for the Eleanor Dodson Tragen Award 2025
The Eleanor Dodson Tragen Award honors a spouse, family member, domestic partner or member of household who has effectively advocated and promoted rights, programs, services and benefits for Foreign Service families in the tradition of the AAFSW and its members, as did the late Mrs. Eleanor Tragen.
In the 1960s, Mrs. Tragen and her colleagues were instrumental in calling attention to the lack of rights of spouses (at that time almost exclusively wives); they wrote a brief, entitled, “What If?” that spotlighted the lack of resources wives had should they face a sudden death, illness or divorce. Ele then testified before Congress, using “What If?” as her basis and eventually helped to win important rights for wives such as access to alimony and pension benefits.
While the first recipients of the award (see box) were recognized for this early work in gaining rights for wives, more recent recipients have been honored for their work on issues that face today’s Foreign Service spouses, partners and families.
Criteria:
The recipient, active duty or retired, will be chosen for his/her volunteer efforts to enhance, improve, broaden or make more effective services, rights and benefits provided to FS spouses, families, EFM domestic partners and household members. The initiative to be recognized should benefit more than just a specific mission activity at one post, but offer promise of replication or application throughout the Foreign Service.
2024: Megan Kuhn
Award:
The winner will receive a cash award of $2,000, which will be presented at the AAFSW Annual Awards Program in November or December. If available, the Program will be held at the State Department and the winner will also be honored at a luncheon at the DACOR Bacon House and receive travel costs to and free lodging at DACOR Bacon House if posted outside of DC.
Eligibility:
Nominees must be spouses, family members, EFM domestic partners or members of household of FS employees, active or retired. Previous nominees can be considered if an updated justification sheet is included. Nominees must agree to attend the November/ December awards ceremony if selected.
Nominations:
To make a nomination, please submit the following:
• Nominee’s full name
• Nominee’s relationship to the direct-hire employee or retiree
• Nominee’s email address
• Nominator’s name and relationship to nominee
• Justification for the nomination including specific actions and qualities that fulfill the award criteria
• Name of nominee’s hometown newspaper and U.S. representative in Congress
• Nominations should be submitted as a Word document, not to exceed 3 pages, double-spaced.
Nominations should be sent by e-mail to: president@ dacorbacon.org
Extended submission deadline: May 31, 2025.
Past Tragen Award Recipients
For her leadership in launching the Parallel Professionals
networking group to help Eligible Family Members and Members of Household navigate career mobility in the Federal Government, establishing the group as an official Employee Organization in the State Department, giving a voice to a cohort of hardworking federal employees who previoulsy had no clear advocate and fostering a supportive professional culture for Foreign Affairs' family members.
2023: Michelle Neyland
2022: Alison Davis
2021: Fabiula Maughan
2020: Joanna Athanasopoulos Owen
2019: Melissa Brayer-Hess
2018: Patricia Linderman
2017: Kelly Bembry Midura
2016: Leah Evans
2015: Sheila Switzer
2014: Ann La Porta
2013: Bob Castro
2012: Thomas Gallagher
2010: Mari O’Connor
2009: Mette Beecroft
2007: Leslie Dorman
2006: Jean Vance
For a full list of recipients' contributions, please visit dacorbacon.org/dacor_awards.php.
Research Institute (IFPRI); Director, Telecoms Trade Matters, USNCPECC; Executive Director, PECC Telecom and IT Forum (TIIF); Visiting Fellow, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California; Founder and Moderator, Southern California Mobile Commerce Roundtable; President, ICM Insight LLC.
Katherine Grace HUMMELT
Katherine Grace Hummelt is a historic preservation specialist and architectural historian, working for Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners (BBB). For twelve years, she has contributed to projects in the United States and abroad, guiding the treatment, repair, interpretation, and reuse of historic properties. Prior to working for BBB, she gained experience in Scotland working for Historic Environment Scotland, researching and writing on the intersection of traditional buildings, climate change, and energy efficiency. Katherine also worked with the DACOR Bacon House Foundation and DACOR members and staff to develop the Historic Structure Report for 1801 F Street. She was introduced to DACOR by Angela Dickey.
Kirk PORTMANN and Mukhayo PORTMANN
Kirk Portmann was a Foreign Service Officer, political cone, from 2010-2015. He served in Venezuela and Hungary.
2025 Membership Dues
Please check your email and/or mailbox for your 2025 membership dues invoice. Can't find an invoice or need help paying? Contact us at dacor@dacorbacon.org or 202.682.0500.
Thank you for being a DACOR member!
Continued from page 17.
Michael QUINN
Michael Quinn’s first assignment as a Foreign Service Officer will be OMS in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Previously, he was a military officer for five years and in civilian business management for 15 years.
Ahmad RAZA and Hira KHANZADA
Ahmad Raza is a Foreign Service Officer in the January 2025 class with an upcoming consular assignment to Abu Dhabi, UAE. Ahmad’s previous roles include venture capital associate (Palo Alto, CA), local government Management Fellow (Milpitas, CA), Corporate Immigration Law Coordinator (Santa Clara, CA), and Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (Madrid, Spain).
Francisco VAZQUEZ and ANNA BOOTH
Francisco Vazquez is currently a Diplomatic Special Agent Candidate; he served as a security contractor at the U.S. Mission in Kabul. His prior experience includes five years of Tech Strategy Consulting, three years as a security contractor, and 8 years in the Marine Corps.
DACOR Member LinkedIn Group
Join your fellow members to build a stronger network! The group is a private LinkedIn group designed to foster networking and camaraderie among our distinguished community. Join the group at https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13140159 or scan the QR code.
that enhanced my educational journey, like the Duke fellowship. Because of the DACOR award, I have been able to expand my worldview through travel, spend time volunteering, and focus fully on my studies and professional development without absorbing the weight of student loans. I am sincerely grateful to DACOR for the award, and I promise to make great use of my education as I begin my career.
The officers and governors of DACOR note with deep regret the deaths of the following DACOR members and extend sympathy and condolences to members of the families and to colleagues and friends.
Hon. Dick CARLSON, former ambassador to the Seychelles and former journalist who led Voice of America (VOA), died March 24, 2025, in Boca Grande, Florida, at the age of 84.
Ambassador Carlson, father of conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, was born February 10, 1941, in Boston, Massachusetts. He joined the Navy in 1959, training with the Marine Corps. Despite his lack of a high school diploma, he attended the University of Mississippi through the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC). He dropped out of college and left military service in 1962. Mr. Carlson said he was dismayed by the racism in the South and remembered words of encouragement about his writing from a journalist he once met.
In the early 1960s, Ambassador Carlson was a copy boy for the Los Angeles Times, a reporter for United Press International, a freelance reporter and a TV journalist. In 1975, he worked at KABC-TV in Los Angeles, where he won a Peabody Award for a story about an automobile company’s fraud — during which he also outed the company’s founder as a transgender woman. The next year, at San Diego’s KFMB-TV, he drew international attention when he questioned whether transgender tennis player Renée Richards should be playing female opponents. He said the intense fascination with the Richards story led him to leave journalism.
In 1977, Ambassador Carlson took a position at San Diego Federal Savings and Loan Association, where he served several years as a vice president, and then ran unsuccessfully for mayor of San Diego in 1984.
Ambassador Carlson began working in Washington in 1985 as
the spokesman for the United States Information Agency (USIA) and became the acting director of VOA a year later under President Reagan. He led VOA as its journalists and commentators chronicled epochal events including the fall of the Berlin Wall, China’s deadly crackdowns on pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square and the looming breakup of the Soviet Union that marked the end of the Cold War.
After leaving VOA in 1991, he was appointed ambassador to the Seychelles, where he served for 1 year. Following this assignment, he became chief executive of the nonprofit Corporation for Public Broadcasting; and president of a division of King World Productions that syndicated “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and other programs. In the 2000s, he was vice chairman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, an antiterrorism think tank.
Ambassador Carlson was predeceased by his second wife, Patricia Swanson, an heiress to the Swanson Frozen food empire. He is survived by 2 sons from his first marriage, Tucker and Buckley, and 5 grandchildren.
Albert E. FAIRCHILD,
retired Foreign Service Officer, died November 11, 2024, at the age of 83.
Mr. Fairchild was born November 1, 1941, in Abington, Pennsylvania, and grew up in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He received bachelor’s degrees from the University of North Carolina and University of Chicago in international studies and political Science; a master’s degree from Georgetown University in political
science and Russian studies. He joined the Foreign Service in 1966.
Mr. Fairchild’s overseas assignments included many countries in Africa and the Middle East; specifically, as a political officer in Senegal and Afghanistan, deputy ambassador in the Central African Republic and Niger, and economic/commercial officer in Iran. In addition to English, he spoke Russian, French and Farsi.
After many years abroad, Mr. Fairchild and his family returned to Washington, where he was deputy director of regional affairs in the Africa Bureau, director of African area studies at the Foreign Service Institute, and senior management analyst in the office of the Under Secretary for management. He retired in 2004.
Following his retirement, Mr. Fairchild was a full-time consultant for the State Department's Office of Strategic and Performance Planning until 2011. He loved his work and during his retirement remained very interested and well-versed in international politics.
Mr. Fairchild is survived by his wife Parvin, two children, Mimi Houstoun (Richard) and James Christopher Murray (Andrea) and his brother William Fairchild. He is also survived by six grandchildren.
Theodore “Ted” SELLIN,
retired Foreign Service Officer, died March 7, 2025, in Bethesda, Maryland, at the age of 96.
Mr. Sellin was born June 17, 1928, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He attended Uppsala University in Sweden from 1946 to 1948 and subsequently received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1951
and a master’s degree in international relations in 1952, after which he joined the Foreign Service.
Overseas, Mr. Sellin served as a political officer at embassies in Denmark, Finland, and Oslo, and as consul general in Gothenburg, Sweden. Between overseas assignments he worked in the West African branch of the office of intelligence research in the Bureau of International Organizations; in the Bureau for Oceans, Environmental and Scientific Affairs, involved with U.S. bilateral scientific co-operation; and, principally, as polar
affairs officer in multilateral positions that took him to Antarctic peripheries and the geographic South Pole in 1974 and to the Arctic in 1976. He retired from the Foreign Service in 1981.
In retirement, Mr. Sellin continued with the Department of State in various REA/WAE appointments, finally serving as senior reviewer in the Northern European section of the FOIA office. In 2019, at age 91, he fully retired, ending his 67-year career with the Department.
An interest in aviation in his youth led to a U.S. private pilot license in
1944, and, in his first overseas posting, a Danish private pilot license in 1954. Flying engendered a lifelong interest in sailing, which evolved into extensive cruising on waters of Scandinavia and the U.S. East and Gulf coasts. For a time, he was a charter skipper on the Chesapeake Bay.
Mr. Sellin is survived by his wife of 59 years, Taru (née Järvi); son Derek and grandchildren Sonia and Axel, all residing in Finland. The family is honored to gather at DACOR Bacon House for a private Celebration of Life in early July.
The officers and governors of DACOR were saddened to learn of the deaths of the following colleagues and friends.
Harry
Lafayette COBURN, retired Foreign Service Officer, died January 23, 2025, in Naples, Florida, at the age of 90.
Mr. Coburn was born July 7, 1934, in Hempstead, New York. He received a bachelor’s degree from the College of the Holy Cross in 1956 and then joined the U.S. Air Force. After completing his military service, he entered the Foreign Service.
Mr. Coburn’s overseas assignments included vice consul in Madrid, Suva, Rome, and Florence. While in Washington, he was an intelligence analyst in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs and assistant secretary of state for consular affairs and attended the National War College at Fort McNair. He then became minister-counselor of political affairs in Rome before retiring.
In retirement, Mr. Coburn continued to serve as an advisor at the Department of State until 2018. He lived in Arlington, Virginia until 2022 before moving permanently to his summer home in Naples.
Mr. Coburn is survived by his wife of 60-plus years, Patricia; and three children, Charles, Sarah, and Ian.
Max FRANKEL,
a New York Times journalist who helped shepherd the Pentagon Papers into print in 1971, won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of President Richard M. Nixon’s trip to China in 1972, and later presided over the newsroom as executive editor, died March 23, 2025, in Manhattan, at the age of 94.
Mr. Frankel was born April 3, 1930, in Gera, in what would later be East Germany. He came to New York in 1940 as a Jewish refugee of Nazi Germany. He received a bachelor’s degree from Columbia in 1952 and a master’s degree from the same institution in 1953.
Mr. Frankel began writing for The Times as a Columbia University campus correspondent and was hired as a reporter after graduating. He remained with the paper for the next 48 years — with time out for the Army from 1953 to 1955 — as a reporter and correspondent for 19 years, an editor for 21 years, and a columnist for The Times’s Sunday magazine for 6 years.
In 1956, Mr. Frankel captured the drama of the deadly collision of the liners Andrea Doria and Stockholm off Nantucket Island. He soon began covering political campaigns around
the country, and later that year, he became a foreign correspondent in Eastern Europe, and later, in Moscow and Havana. After his one-year assignment in Havana ended, he joined the Washington bureau on the diplomatic, State Department, and foreign policy beats.
From 1966-68, Mr. Frankel was White House correspondent and was later named Washington bureau chief and chief Washington correspondent. In this role, he accompanied Nixon to China in 1972 on a historic mission to establish contacts after decades of estrangement. He wrote 35,000 words and 24 articles in eight days and won the 1973 Pulitzer for international reporting. In 1973, Mr. Frankel became an editor, returning to New York to take charge of the Sunday sections: The Times Magazine, The Book Review, Arts & Leisure and The Week in Review. He was executive editor 1986-1994.
Mr. Frankel is survived by his wife Joyce; three children from his first marriage, David, Margot, and Jonathan; and 6 grandchildren.
Andrew “Andy” Charles PARKER,
retired Foreign Service Officer, died December 23, 2024, in Miami Beach, Florida, at the age of 74.
Mr. Parker graduated from Duke University and the University of San Francisco School of Law and was a member of the State Bar of California. He began his career as a legal aid attorney in California and as an attorney-advisor with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington before joining the Foreign Service in November 1981.
Over the following decades, Mr. Parker served as a consular officer in Haiti, Jamaica, the Netherlands, Mexico, Germany, and Israel. His final posting was to Québec as consul general. He also served as labor attaché in Nigeria and as deputy chief of mission in Guyana. He retired from the Foreign Service in 2014 after three decades of public service.
In retirement, Mr. Parker renewed his work in immigration law and consular practice, pro bono, including in his adopted hometown of Black River, St. Elizabeth, Jamaica, where he farmed coconuts and was an active member of the local chamber of commerce.
Mr. Parker is survived by his wife, Sheryn; two children, Arielle and Clay; his mother, Caroline; 2 siblings, Fred and Suzy; and 3 grandchildren.
Roy PROSTERMAN,
a lawyer who abandoned a lucrative corporate practice and dedicated the rest of his life to a campaign against global poverty, founding and leading a nongovernmental organization that helped millions of agricultural workers around the world secure legal rights to the land they farmed, died February 27, 2025, in Seattle, Washington, at the age of 89.
Mr. Prosterman was born July 13, 1935, in Chicago, Illinois. He received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago in 1954 and a law degree in 1958 from Harvard. He then landed a job at a prestigious New York law firm, Sullivan & Cromwell, working there for 6 years before joining the University of Washington, where he taught property, antitrust and international investment law, already consumed by the idea of using his training to aid the world’s rural poor.
In 1966, Mr. Prosterman wrote a counterproposal in Washington Law Review titled “Land Reform in Latin America: How to Have a Revolution Without a Revolution.” The article attracted the notice of U.S. policymakers focused on the Vietnam War. He was hired as a consultant for a study commissioned by the U.S. Agency for International Development on land reform in Vietnam, where he conducted extensive research that included interviewing farmers in rice paddies. He
argued that South Vietnam, which was pitted in the war against communist North Vietnam, was losing the support of its population in large part because of economic insecurity. He played a key role in designing the “land to the tiller” program that was enacted by South Vietnam in 1970 and gave 1 million tenant-farmer households ownership of the land they worked.
Mr. Prosterman eventually established the Rural Development Institute in 1981, later renamed Landesa. Through Landesa, he helped countries establish legal frameworks by which governments could provide small plots of land to people who previously had none. He worked in more than 60 countries, including Russia and the surrounding area after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, India, China and nations throughout Latin America, Africa and the Middle East.
Mr. Prosterman was never married and had no immediate survivors.
Helen SCHREIDER,
intrepid world traveler, and along with her first husband Frank Schreider, one of the first people to travel the Americas in an amphibious vehicle, died February 6, 2025, in Santa Rosa, California, at the age of 98.
Ms. Schreider was born May 3, 1926, in Coalinga, California. She received a bachelor’s degree in fine art from the
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University of California, Los Angeles, where she met Mr. Schreider. They married in 1947 while they were still undergraduates and went on to indulge their wanderlust in India, Africa, the Middle East, and the Amazon Basin, making documentary films and writing of their lengthy journeys in books and in articles for National Geographic magazine.
The Schreiders were part of a semigolden era of exploration, when bold transits could still be plotted across a globe not entirely subdued by technology. But he was recognized for their accomplishments long before she was. It wasn’t until 2015 — 59 years after her husband — that Ms. Schreider was belatedly inducted into the Explorers Club, a fraternity of the hearty (a membership originally limited to men) who blazed new routes through “the open and the wild places of the earth.”
They completed six long assignments for National Geographic magazine from 1957 to 1969, beginning with a second trip by amphibious jeep along the Ganges River in India. They followed up with a 13-month journey through the Indonesian archipelago. Trips by Land Rover followed, first in the Great Rift Valley of Africa and then along a 24,000-mile route from Greece to India in the footsteps of Alexander the Great. Their last expedition, in 1969, was to map the Amazon River from its headwaters in the Peruvian Andes, which they navigated in a small boat they built themselves.
In 1970, the Schreiders parted ways with the National Geographic. They divorced a few years later and pursued individual careers. Ms. Schreider joined the National Park Service as a museum designer.
Ms. Schreider is survived by a brother, Donald, and her partner, John Ryan.
Peter SICHEL,
Cold War spy and decorated CIA officer, who popularized Blue Nun wine, died February 24, 2025, in New York City, at the age of 102.
Peter Max Ferdinand Sichel was born September 12, 1922, in Mainz, Germany. Long before he went into the wine business, he led a life of cloakand-dagger intrigue. A German Jewish refugee, he arrived in the United States as a teenager, volunteered for the Army to fight Hitler and became a decorated spy for the CIA and its wartime predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). During World War II, he served in Algiers and then as head of the OSS unit attached to General George Patton’s third Army as it drove from Southern France toward Alsace in late 1944. By age 22, he had acquired a nickname for his success in the field: “the Wunderkind.”
Mr. Sichel served as CIA station chief in Berlin, where he gathered crucial intelligence in the early years of the Cold War. He later presided over Eastern European operations from an office in Washington before being sent to Hong Kong in 1956 — a plum assignment at a time when the United States had no diplomatic ties with Mao Zedong’s communist government on the mainland. He remained in Hong Kong until he resigned from the agency in 1959.
When Mr. Sichel took over his family wine business in New York in 1960, he streamlined it and concentrated on promoting the company’s brands, the focus of which would be Blue Nun. At its commercial peak in 1984, 1.25 million cases were sold in the United States alone. He chaired the company until 1995, when he sold the business.
Mr. Sichel was predeceased by his wife, Stella Spanoudaki and a daughter, Alex. He is survived by two daughters, Bettina and Sylvia; and 5 grandchildren.
Paul F. STARZYNSKI,
retired Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Information Agency (USIA), died February 16, 2025, in Arlington, Virginia, at the age of 86.
Mr. Starzynski was born December 25, 1938, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
As a career Foreign Service Officer, Mr. Starzynski served in South Korea, Japan, and India. He retired in 1993 after almost 31 years of service.
He is survived by his wife of 57 years, Florence; a sister, Susan; two children, Stefan and Kim; four foster children, Vibol, Visal, Ayalew, and Megan; and four grandchildren.
DACOR Bulletin Obituaries
DACOR welcomes receiving obituaries of foreign affairs professionals, whether DACOR members or otherwise. They are reviewed by Obituaries Editor Frances Burnet, primarily for length; 500 words usually suffices.
The deadline for submissions is the 1st day of the previous month; i.e. for the June issue, please email the obit by May 1st to Christine Skodon at: clskodon@dacorbacon.org
The obituaries that are featured in the DACOR Bulletin are adapted from a variety of sources: information provided by loved ones of the deceased; the Washington Post, New York Times, Foreign Service Journal and other periodicals; ADST's Oral History Collection; historical documents; and others. Please contact DACOR for sources used for a specific obituary.
