Lahtahnius Randolph Higgs Jr. (1909-1981)

From the Foreign Service Journal's 1936 photo supplement.

  Mississippi native Lahtahnius Randolph Higgs Jr. sports one of the most eye-popping first names you'll read about here and hiding behind that bizarre first name is the story of a career diplomat who served as Vice-Consul and Consul in areas in Mexico, Indonesia, Finland, and Sweden. In his later years, Higgs took on more substantial roles in the state department, including time as deputy director of the Office of Eastern European Affairs, and ended his career as a State Department security evaluations senior officer. The son of Lahtahnius Randolph Higgs Sr. (1866-1930) and the former Etta Larina Abernethy, Lahtahnius Randolph Higgs was born in Shannon, Mississippi on September 9, 1909. Despite this peculiar name being shared by both father and son, I have no intriguing backstory as to its origin or historical significance.

  A student at the West Point Hugh School, L. Randolph Higgs later studied at the University of Mississippi from 1927-1930 and in the summer of 1929 undertook further study at the University of Alabama. Following his graduation from the University of Mississippi Higgs enrolled at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, where he studied from 1930-31. After passing the appropriate examination Higgs was named Foreign Service Officer unclassified and in January 1932 entered into his first diplomatic post, that of Vice Consul in Tampico, Mexico. He resided in that country through the remainder of 1932 and in April 1933 returned to the United States to undertake further study at the Foreign Service Officer's Training School. 

  Returning overseas in late 1933, L. Randolph Higgs was designated temporary Vice Consul at Batavia, Java, and just two days following that appointment was transferred to Surabaya, Java, where he remained until July 1935. Shortly before his Surabaya consulship, Higgs married to Lafayette, Indiana native Gladys Marice Weeks on September 2, 1933, their marriage taking place in Chicago. The couple would later divorce and following Higgs' retirement from the foreign service he remarried in 1966 to Marcia Nadine Lindgren (1917-2013), who would survive him upon his death in 1981. Both unions were childless.

From the Ole Miss Yearbook, 1929.

  In July 1935 Higgs was again named as vice-consul in Batavia, with his service in that area extending one year. The following July he was selected as 3rd secretary and vice-consul at Helsingfors (Helsinki), Finland, where he was stationed until his return to the state department in 1940. Higgs' first stay in Helsinki saw him narrowly escape death in January 1940 when an incendiary device struck the residence of Minister H.F. Arthur Schoenfeld. The Foreign Service Journal later reported on the incident, detailing that Higgs had been sitting in the villa's living room just twenty minutes prior to the bomb exploding.  

   Beginning in April 1944 Higgs occupied the role of 2nd Secretary and vice-consul in Stockholm, Sweden, and at various points between 1944-45 held the additional post of secretary of mission in Helsinki. In these posts, Higgs would have a considerable impact, as diplomatic relations with Finland had been broken in June 1944 due to that country's alliance with Nazi Germany. Dispatched from the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm, Higgs would be sent to Helsinki in January 1945, becoming the first American diplomatic officer to serve in that country since relations were severed the year prior. Higgs would have charge of the American mission in Helsinki until the arrival of Maxwell W. Hamilton, President Roosevelt's designee. Prior to Hamilton's arrival, Higgs would "take care of American political interests in Finland" and also met with Finnish prime minister Juho Paasikivi and consulted with him on Finland's "war guilt."

   In June 1945 L. Randolph Higgs advanced to the post of First Secretary of the American Legation at Stockholm (in addition to his duties as consul) and in 1947 was transferred to Bern, Switzerland, where he was counselor of legation. His time in Switzerland concluded in May 1949 and afterward returned the United States, where for nearly a year he was detailed to the National War College in Washington, D.C. In June 1950 he was appointed deputy director for the state department's Office of Eastern European Affairs, and in 1952 was dispatched to Trieste (on the Italian-Yugoslavia border) as a political advisor, "having the equivalent of two-star rank." This period saw Higgs as a troubleshooter on the "Trieste problem", extending from the disputed border area between Italy and Yugoslavia, and his 1981 obituary further notes his contributing "significantly to the formulation of U.S. policies leading to the settlement of 'the Trieste problem.'''

L. Randolph Higgs, from the Foreign Service Journal, March 1947.

    In 1954 Higgs again returned to Washington, D.C. to serve the state department, this time as a deputy operations coordinator. During this period "Randy" Higgs was briefed on several occasions by CIA director Allen Dulles on possible Russian meddling in Middle Eastern water ports and oil-rich areas. From 1957-58 Higgs was stationed in Lebanon as counselor of legation in Beirut, serving under U.S. Ambassador Donald Heath. This was followed by a two-year residency (1958-1960) in Wellington, New Zealand, where Higgs was counselor of legation, and in 1962 he retired from the diplomatic service as a "senior mutual security evaluations officer." Following retirement, Higgs and his wife resided in Ormond Beach, Florida, where he died aged 71 on April 22, 1981. He was later returned to Mississippi for burial in the Higgs family plot at the Shannon Cemetery in Lee County.

From a 1981 State Department newsletter.

Holdsworth Gordon Minnigerode (1905-1978)

From the Foreign Service Journal's 1936 photo supplement.

   Possessing one of the more aristocratic-sounding names you'll read about here on the site, career diplomat Holdsworth Gordon Minnigerode was a native of Washington, D.C. and for over two decades time served as U.S. Vice Consul and Consul to areas in Canada, Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East. The son of Cuthbert Powell and Esther Gordon Minnigerode, Holdsworth Gordon Minnigerode was born in Washington, D.C. on August 22, 1905. A distinguished figure in capital art circles, C. Powell Minnigerode was for over five decades connected to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, serving as its director for forty years.

   Recorded by most sources under the name "H. Gordon", Minnigerode attended the Western High School in the nation's capital and would enroll at Brown University in the mid-1920s. Following his graduation in 1928, Minnigerode briefly flirted with a career in journalism, being a newspaper reporter for about a year. In 1930 he passed the foreign service examination and was appointed Foreign Service officer unclassified. In April 1930 he was sent on his first diplomatic mission, that of Vice Consul in Montreal, Canada, and also briefly served as Vice-Consul in Quebec beginning in July. In September 1930 Minnigerode returned to the United States to study at the Foreign Service Officer's training school, where he remained through the final months of the year.

   Named as Vice Consul in Jerusalem in early 1931, Minnigerode entered into his duties in February of that year and remained at that post until the summer of 1933, when he was transferred to the U.S. Embassy at Tegucigalpa, Honduras. His time as third secretary and Vice Consul in the country extended only a year, and in October 1934 began a three-year tenure as Vice Consul in Bangkok, Thailand. In a curious bit of "strange name" trivia, Minnigerode's fellow vice-consul at the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok was none other than Halvern Lamar Norris (1896-1955), who was profiled here earlier this month.  These two oddly named men served together in Bangkok from 1934 until Norris's transfer to Belgrade in 1938 and were photographed together at an October 1935 meeting between the American Legation and the Asiatic Squadron of the U.S. Naval Fleet. 

Halvern Norris (pictured left) and Holdsworth Minnigerode, from the Foreign Service Journal.

  Minnigerode continued to serve in the Asiatic sphere after his transfer from Bangkok, being designated as Vice Consul in Singapore in December 1937. In January of the new year, Minnigerode met his future wife, Birmingham, Alabama native Anna Hardeman Meade (1903-1986) at a Washington, D.C. dinner party. Within a few weeks of their meeting, the couple became engaged and married in Singapore on Minnigerode's birthday, August 22, 1938. The couple were wed for nearly forty years and would remain childless.

  1940 saw Minnigerode and his wife still residing in Singapore, and for a brief period that year, he served as acting consul in Penang, Malaysia. The couple returned to the United States for home leave in 1941, residing in Washington from June-October. This time also saw Minnigerode compile an article entitled "Life Grows Grim in Singapore" that would see publication in the November edition of the National Geographic. In August 1941 he was selected as Vice Consul in San Jose, Costa Rica (serving until 1945), and in February of that year was named to his first European post, that of vice-consul in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Minnigerodre advanced to full Consul in April 1945 and in the year following began serving as Consul in Karachi, Pakistan.

  Entering into his duties in August 1946, Minnigerode would be the last consul in Karachi before it became the capital of Pakistan (that country becoming a nation in 1947) and saw the consulate officially be designated an embassy. From 1948-50 Minnigerode and his wife resided in Cairo, Egypt, where he was Consul, and for four months pulled diplomatic "double duty", serving as acting consul in Lagos, Nigeria from February to May 1949, This, in turn, was followed by Minnigerode's posting in Daar-es-Salaam, Tanganyika from November 1949 to 1951, and afterward was named Consul in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

  Minnigerode's stay in South Africa from 1954-56 saw him profiled by one of his fellow diplomats (John James Harter) as an "eccentric, introverted, academic-type person" who enjoyed the high society life of other nations. Minngerode achieved his highest ranking diplomatic post in 1956 when he began a two-year tenure as Consul General in Cape Town. During this time he and his wife played to host to a visiting Adlai E. Stevenson, who had been invited to address the South African parliament. 

  Reassigned to the state department in Washington early in 1958, Minnigerode retired from the diplomatic service that same year and in the following year, he and his wife purchased the ''Thornhill" plantation in Talladega, Alabama, where they would reside for the remainder of their lives. Holdsworth Gordon Minnigerode died in Talladega on February 18, 1978, aged 72. He was later interred in the family plot at Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington, D.C. Anna Hardeman Meade Menningerode survived her husband by eight years, and following her death aged 83 in 1986 was interred at that same cemetery.

From the Anniston Star, February 19, 1978.

Wymberley DeRenne Coerr (1913-1996)

From the Buffalo Courier-Express, October 9, 1967.

    A leading foreign service officer in the administrations of Presidents Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson,  Wymberley De Renne Coerr was selected by the first-named president as U.S. Ambassador to Uruguay. Following three years in that post, Coerr was named Ambassador to Ecuador, where he continued to serve until 1967 when he was expelled from the country by President Otto Arosemena Gomez, who had objected to Coerr's criticism of Ecuador's then-government. Born in New York City on October 2, 1913, Wymberley DeRenne Coerr was the son of Frederic and Audrey Coerr DeRenne Howland (1889-1931).

   A graduate of the Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, Coerr went on to enroll at Yale University, and following graduation in 1936 did post-graduate work at the Sorbonne in Paris until 1937. After his return to the United States Coerr passed the foreign service examination and in November 1939 was designated foreign service officer unclassified and Secretary in the Diplomatic Service. The following January saw Coerr named to his first consular post (that of Vice Consul in Montreal), where he was stationed until returning to the Foreign Service Officer's Training School in January 1941. Prior to this training, Coerr married to his first wife, Janet Hill, with whom he had two children, Stanton Paine (1943-2009) and Susan.

  After several months of study, Coerr recommenced with diplomatic service in June 1941 when he took the post of Vice Consul in La Ceiba, Honduras. His two-year tenure in that country concluded in early 1943 and in March of that year was transferred to the U.S. Consulate in Mexico City, where he was vice-consul for a brief three month period. June 1943 saw Coerr appointed as Vice Consul at Acapulco de Juarez, where he served until his resignation in January 1944. 

  For the next three years, Wymberley Coerr worked outside the state department, being the manager and education director for the Consumer Cooperative Corps. After his return to the state department in 1947, he was named as Consul at Suva, Fiji Islands, and afterward held the office of deputy chief of missions at various posts in Honduras, Guatemala, and Bolivia. For a time Coerr was a director of the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs, his full dates of service being uncertain at this time. Coerr entered into his first high profile state department post in April 1961 when he began service as acting assistant secretary of state for Inter-American Affairs under President Kennedy, serving in that capacity until July. Kennedy would later appoint Coerr as U.S. Ambassador to Uruguay, where he would serve from 1962-1965.

President Kennedy and Wymberley Coerr, 1962. Courtesy of the JFK Presidential Library.

  Following Lyndon Johnson's succession to the presidency, Wymberley Coerr left Uruguay to accept the Ambassadorship to Ecuador, entering into his duties in March 1965. He would reside in that country capital, Quito, until 1967, and in that year found himself in diplomatic hot water when he was accused by Ecuadorian president Oscar Arosemena Gomez of making open criticisms of the government while speaking at the Colegio Americano in Quito. These "unacceptable public criticisms of leading government officials" drew the ire of not only Arosemena but other high ranking Ecuadorian politicians, who then issued a request for Coerr's expulsion from the U.S. Embassy. Despite Coerr's firm denial on making the remarks (as well as having the backing of journalists and American officials), he was withdrawn from Ecuador in October 1967.

  While his diplomatic career abroad ended on a sour note, Coerr continued service in the state department after his return stateside, being the assistant director for the state department's security affairs group, and beginning in 1974 spent two years as the Smithsonian Institution's international programs director. Having divorced in the mid-1960s, Coerr remarried in 1965 to Eleanor Page (1922-2010), who later gained distinction as a children's author, writing, amongst other pieces, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes in 1977. Coerr's later years saw him residing in McLean, Virginia, and would combat Parkinson's disease. He removed to Mexico for treatment in mid-1996 and later died in Ajijic, Mexico on October 5, 1996, three days after his 83rd birthday.

Cavendish Wells Cannon (1895-1962)

Cavendish Cannon at the Danube River Conference, 1948.

   Endowed with a name that sounds more at home with English nobility than with U.S. diplomacy, Cavendish Wells Cannon was a Utah native who, after several postings in U.S. Consulates, achieved ambassadorial rank in 1947, when he was named as U.S. Ambassador to Yugoslavia. Following two years of service in that post, Cannon went on to hold other ambassadorships, including to Syria, Portugal, and Greece, and concluded his foreign service career as Ambassador to Morocco. The son of prominent newspaper editor John Quayle Cannon (1857-1931) and the former Elizabeth Ann Wells, Cavendish Wells Cannon was born in Salt Lake City, Utah on February 1, 1895. 

  A student in the public schools of Salt Lake City, Cannon went on to attend the University of Utah, graduating in 1916. Born into the Church of Latter-Day Saints, Cannon was at various times a member of the Pioneer Stake Sunday school board, a church organist, and for a time taught school in Hyrum, Utah. Following American entrance into World War I, Cannon enlisted in the Marine Corps and during the war was stationed in France. At the conclusion of his service, Cannon remained in Paris, where he undertook further study at the University of Paris. 

  Following the study of music in Vienna, Cannon elected to start a career in the diplomatic service, and, after completing the appropriate examination, was named by the state department to his first diplomatic post in Vienna in February 1920. He was named to the American legation in that city in 1921 and continued service in that country until 1927. Cannon would meet his wife Marie Lucia Otilie Horzetsky during his tenure and was married in January 1921. The couple were married for over forty years and would remain childless.

  In 1927 Cavendish Cannon was appointed as U.S. Consul in Zurich, Switzerland. His time in that city extended until 1933 when he joined the American legation at Sofia, Bulgaria, and in March of that year was designated 3rd secretary and Vice Consul. He advanced to Consul at Sofia in 1935 and following four years of service in that country was transferred to the U.S. Embassy in Athens, Greece.

From the Foreign Service Journal's 1936 photo supplement.

  Cannon's first stint as a diplomat in Greece saw him in the additional role of Consul for the Italian Islands of the Aegean beginning in 1939, and in March of that year was named 2nd secretary of the American legation in that country. During the Nazi invasion of Greece in 1941 Cannon was forced to relocate to Belgrade, Yugoslavia, where he and his wife experienced further bombing by German aircraft, and by May 1941 had returned to New York. The following month Cannon began work in the state department's Division of European Affairs, and in 1944 he had advanced to the post of assistant chief of the Division of Southern European Affairs for the state department. 

   In May 1945 Cannon was dispatched to Lisbon, Portugal to serve as First Secretary and Consul. His time in Lisbon extended until early 1947 when President Harry Truman appointed him as U.S. Ambassador to Yugoslavia, a country then designated as "a stronghold of communist influence." Cannon's rise to ambassadorial rank proved to be noteworthy, as he was the "first Foreign Service officer to be upped from third class to ambassador". The American Foreign Service Journal further lauded Cannon's appointment, remarking:

"Cannon is rated as an outstanding expert in the Balkans. During the war he worked his way up to be chief of the State Departent's Division for Souther European Affairs. He accompanied Secretary Hull to the Moscow Conference of 1943 and was a political advisor at the Berlin Conference of 1945 and at the meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers in London."

From the Buffalo Courier Exchange, August 5, 1947.

    Cavendish Cannon's two-year tenure at the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade saw him intercede as a troubleshooter in diplomatic strains between Yugoslavia and the United States, including the banning of two American news correspondents in 1947,  and the arrest and detainment of U.S. soldiers at Trieste in 1947 and 1948. In June 1948 Cannon was recalled to the United States for consultation in regards to growing tension between Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito (1892-1980) and Russia. Following his return to his post, Cannon is remarked as "strengthening" Tito's stand against Soviet interference, and in July of that year served as America's chief delegate to the Danube River Conference, an eleven nation gathering that argued control of Danube River shipping.

   Appointed as U.S. Ambassador to Syria in 1950, Cannon's time in Damascus saw the March 1951 bombing of the American legation in that city via dynamite. Despite not being home at the time of the bombing, Cannon's residence was damaged and a houseboy injured, with newspaper reports blaming Syrian nationalists as being behind the attack. 

  In February 1952 Cannon added another diplomatic feather to his cap when he was designated Ambassador to Portugal, a post he would fill for only a year before being named Ambassador to Greece. Cannon's tenure at Athens saw northern Greece greatly impacted by snowstorms in January-February 1956, storms that also impacted other parts of Europe and the Mediterranean. Following a plea from Cannon to the state department, a contingent of American transport planes flew to Greece from Wiesbaden Air Force Base in Germany and air-dropped 52 tons of food, clothing, and supplies, with further plans being made to assist Italy by boat.

From the Saratoga Saratogian, 1956.

  Cavendish W. Cannon began his final diplomatic assignment in 1956, being named as Ambassador to Morocco, a country that had only achieved independence from France in April of that year. He retired from the foreign service in 1958 and in the final years of his life resided with his wife in homes in Tangier, Morocco, and Lisbon, Portugal. Stricken with a gallbladder ailment in late 1962, Cannon would undergo an operation in October at an American military hospital in Seville, Spain. Just days after the operation Cannon suffered a heart attack and died at that hospital on October 7, 1962, aged 67. He was survived by his wife and was interred at a cemetery in Seville.

From the Provo Daily Herald, October 8, 1962.

Bradstreet Stinson Rairden (1858-1944)

From "Travels from the Grandeurs of the West to Mysteries of the East", 1909.

  Bradstreet Stinson Rairden can rightfully lay claim to being one of the more unusually named diplomats to represent America abroad at the turn of the 19th century. The son of a Maine ship captain, Rairden resettled in Batavia, Java (Dutch East Indies) in the mid-1880s and for several years worked in shipbuilding and as a merchant. Entering the diplomatic service in 1892, Rairden would serve over twenty years as U.S. Consul at Batavia, and was later transferred to consulates in Riviere de Loup and Curacao. The son of Bradstreet (1813-1887) and Mary Brown (Tarbox) Rairden (1830-1876), Bradstreet Stinson Rairden was born onboard a ship (commanded by his father) at New Orleans harbor on November 7, 1858.

  After returning to his family's home city of Bath, Maine, Bradstreet S. Rairden attended the public schools of that city, and for one year studied at a school in Portishead, Great Britain. At an early age, he followed in his father's stead and took to the sea, for the first time at age sixteen. By 1881 he had become captain of his own ship, the bark Evie Reed, which he commanded for three years. In 1884, stricken by Java fever in Batavia, Java, Rairden left the seagoing life behind and established a home in Aujer, Java. In short order, he became a "ship chandler and commission merchant" in that area and, following his resettlement in Batavia, became connected with the New York Life Insurance Co. as its resident secretary.

   In 1887 Bradstreet S. Rairden married in Batavia to Frances Elizabeth Collins (a British native), to who he was wed until her death in 1942. The couple would have five children, Francis Bradstreet (1888-1973), Percy Wallace (1889-1970), Mamie Lowell (born 1891), David Laurence (1893-1956) and Albert Stuart (1898-1964). Of these children, three of Rairden's four sons followed him into diplomatic service, with Frank, Percy, and David Rairden serving as U.S. Vice and Deputy Consul in Batavia between 1909 and 1916.

  In August 1892 President Benjamin Harrison designated Bradstreet Rairden as U.S. Consul in Batavia, Java. He would serve in that capacity until stepping down in 1897, and during his first five years in that post continually reported on the particulars of the area, including the native population; its pearl fisheries and pearl supply; the weather; and the cultivation of its coffee, sugar and rice crops.

Bradstreet S. Rairden and family (date unknown).

  After a year away from the diplomatic service Rairden was recalled to duty in October 1898, being named as Vice and Deputy Consul in Batavia by President McKinley. He would again serve as Consul beginning in 1900 and continued to serve in that role until being reassigned in 1917. Rairden's long service in Batavia saw that area become open to the import of automobiles, which he reported on in 1916. Noting that "2,386 automobiles " had been imported since 1914, Rairden also took note that over 2000 came from the United States, with the Netherlands, Great Britain, Germany, France, and Belgium also contributing to the overall number. Other particulars of his time in Batavia saw him reflect on the outbreak of cholera in June 1901 and a 1913 drought that damaged that area's coca and coffee crop. Rairden's time abroad saw him acknowledged as an "effective and popular" consul in the eyes of the American tourist, with the 1909 work Travels from the Grandeurs of the West to the Mysteries of the East taking particular note of his ability to give visiting cards to tourists who desired to see two of Batavia's popular social clubs, the "Harmonia" and "Concordia".

"To the American tourist and traveler, who wishes a visiting card to these clubs, should by all means call upon their representative, a Mr. B.S. Rairden, who has been a resident of Java for almost twenty years, and who has served his government faithfully during the greater part of his time in his present position, and in Mr. Rairden the consular service possesses a man really worth while, which is more than can be said of many others that you meet throughout the Consular service."

   After two decades of service in Java, Bradstreet Rairden was transferred to the U.S. Consulate at Riviere du Loup, Quebec, Canada in 1917.  His tenure in Canada extended until 1920, during which time he reported favorably on the construction of a mammoth "$2,500,000 pulp and paper" mill in Gaspe County, Quebec. In 1920 Rairden began his final diplomatic assignment, that of U.S. Consul in Curacao, Lesser Antilles Islands. He retired from the foreign service in August 1924 and in 1925 he and his wife began residence in Los Angeles, Calfornia. The couple later removed to Santa Monica, and in April 1942 Rairden suffered the death of his wife of fifty-four years, Frances. He continued to reside in Santa Monica until his death at age 85 on September 11, 1944. Rairden was later cremated and his ashes returned to Maine for inurnment at the Oak Grove Cemetery in Bath.

Somerville Pinkney Tuck (1891-1967)

From the Gloversville Leader-Herald,  August 13, 1956.

  U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Somerville Pinkney Tuck was, like Charlemagne Tower Jr. before him, well educated and born into wealth and prominence. As the son of Somerville Pinkney Tuck (1848-1923), an American born jurist who served on the International Court of Egypt, Tuck the younger attended schools in Europe and was well prepared for a life in diplomatic service. Born in Staten Island, New York on May 21, 1891, Somerville Pinkney Tuck was the son of Judge Somerville Pinkney and Emily Rosalie (Snowden) Tuck. While father and son share the same name, most sources record both under the abbreviated name "S. Pinkney."

  No biography of S. Pinkey Tuck's diplomatic accomplishments would be complete without mention of his father, who attained international distinction as a jurist. A graduate of the University of Virginia in 1869, S. Pinkney Tuck the elder practiced law in New York City for over twenty years before being nominated by President Cleveland as a judge on the International Court of First Instance in Egypt, a court comprised of judges "who regulated the privileges and status of foreigners domiciled within the dominions of the Turkish sultan." This appointment was later upheld by the Khedive of Egypt, and Tuck sat on this international bench until 1908, when he advanced to the International Court of Appeals at Cairo, Egypt. Tuck continued his service in Egypt until his retirement in 1920, and three years later died and was buried in France.

   As the son of an internationally known jurist, S. Pinkney Tuck was afforded the luxury of attending preparatory schools in Switzerland and Germany, as well as in Ridgefield, Connecticut. He later enrolled at Dartmouth University, and, following his graduation in 1913, decided to follow his father's path and serve abroad. After passing the foreign service exam in 1913 Tuck was appointed as deputy consul at Alexandria, Egypt that September and in May 1914 became vice-consul. By 1919 he had advanced to Consul of class seven and remained in Egypt until January 1920, when he was transferred to the U.S. Consulate in Samsoun, Anatolia, Turkey. 

  Between 1920 and 1938 S. Pinkney Tuck rabbited around the globe, being detailed as a diplomat to over a dozen different areas. The following is a list of positions Tuck occupied abroad between the aforementioned dates:

• 1921--Member of the staff of the U.S. High Commissioner in Constantinople, Turkey.
• 1922--Detailed consul to the diplomatic agency in Cairo, Egypt. Named as U.S. Consul in Vladivostok, Siberia that same year, serving until 1923.
• 1923--Served at the State Department until 1924.
• 1924--Appointed as U.S. Consul at Geneva, Switzerland, serving until 1928. This period of service saw Tuck attend sessions of the League of Nations advisory commission on opium in 1925, 1926, and 1927; American delegate to the Conference for the Limitation for Naval Disarmament, 1927.
• 1928--First Secretary of the American Embassy in Cairo, Egypt (serving until 1929.)
• 1929--First Secretary of the American legation at Budapest, Hungary (serving until 1931.)
• 1932--Appointed as U.S. Charge d'Affaires at Prague.
• 1933--Appointed as First Secretary of the American legation at Paris, France.
• 1937--Designated counselor of Embassy at Brussels, Belgium, and Luxembourg.
• 1938--Counselor of Embassy at Buenos Aires, Argentina (serving until 1941.)

From the Foreign Service Journal's 1936 photo supplement.

   In 1941 Tuck entered into one of his most important diplomatic assignments, that of U.S. Charge d'Affaires to Vichy, France. Several months prior to his arrival in France, the French parliament had voted to end the Third Republic and begin a French State, headed by Marshal Henri Petain (1856-1951). With the de facto capital of France now located at Vichy, Petain and his cabinet signed an armistice agreement with Nazi Germany in June 1940, becoming collaborators with the Nazi government. This period saw S. Pinkney Tuck have a front-line view of rising anti-Semitism against French Jews, their internment in camps in Vichy, and the forced separation of Jewish children from their parents. These collections and deportations reached their apex in July 1942 when nearly 13,000 Jews (including 4,500 children) were arrested in Paris and relocated to a stadium to be deported.  

   Justifiably concerned, S. Pinkney Tuck cabled Secretary of State Cordell Hull in September 1942, informing him of "the fate of Jewish children in the unoccupied zone who have been and are still being separated from their parents." At Hull's suggestion, an idea was hatched to allow "as many children as the United States would be willing to accept" to emigrate from France. After substantial capital was raised to put the plan into action, as well as contributions from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and Quakers, Tuck received a cable from Hull, with directions to ask then Vichy head of state Pierre Laval for exit visas for the children. Following pressure from Tuck, Laval agreed, and with further consultation with the German envoy in Vichy, allowed for five hundred visas to be given out. With these five hundred visas, further plans were laid to relocate thousands of more children out of France, with Canada, Argentina, and the Dominican Republic offering to accept vast numbers.

  This first group of 500 children would leave France for Lisbon, Portugal in November 1942, and, despite a bright start to an ambitious plan, further good fortune was curtailed with the landing of American troops in North Africa that November. Because of this action, Vichy, France took retribution by severing diplomatic channels with the United States and canceled all further exit visas, dashing the hopes of rescuing further children.

Mr. and Mrs. S. Pinkney Tuck, from the May 1944 Foreign Service Journal.

  With relations between Vichy and the United States further deteriorating, S Pinkney Tuck, his wife and other members of the American legation (including staff of other French consulates) were detained by the Germans for two months at hotels in Lourdes, France before being relocated for internment at the Brenners Park Hotel in Baden-Baden, Germany. Tuck and his wife remained in Baden-Baden until being released in March 1944 and would return to the United States aboard the MS Gripsholm.

  Just a short period after his return to the United States, S. Pinkney Tuck would be called once again to diplomatic service, being appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Egypt in April 1944. Following confirmation by the senate, Tuck returned to Egypt and in September 1946 achieved the rank of Ambassador. He retired from diplomatic service in May 1948 and a few months following his retirement gained further distinction when he was named to the board of directors of the Suez Canal Company, becoming the first American to be so honored. He would serve on that board until the Egyptian government "nationalized the waterway" in 1956, and in the twilight of his life resided with his wife in Geneva, Switzerland, and Paris, France. He died at a Paris hospital on April 22, 1967, and was survived by his wife Katherine Whitney (Demme) Tuck (1897-1981), who he had married in 1936. He was later interred at the St. Barnabas Church Cemetery in Upper Marlboro, Maryland.

Tuck during his time as Ambassador to Egypt.

Hooker Austin Doolittle (1889-1966)

From the Foreign Service Journal's 1936 photographic supplement.

  While the word "hooker" most likely conjures up images of ladies of the night plying their trade in the big city, you probably would have never figured on an American public official with it as a first name! Career diplomat Hooker Austin Doolittle was an Empire State native who went on to represent the United States as Vice Consul and Consul General in locations in Russia, Spain, France, Canada, North Africa, and Pakistan. During the latter portion of his career abroad Doolittle would develop a special fondness for Tangier in Morocco, and, following his retirement from the foreign service continued to reside in that country until his death in 1966. The son of Frank Hooker and Minnie Katherine (Schall) Doolittle, Hooker Austin Doolittle was born in Mohawk, New York on January 27, 1889.

  A student at the Utica Free Academy, Doolittle continued his studies at Cornell University, graduating with his A.B. degree in 1911. Following graduation, he was engaged in clerical work in Rahway, New Jersey until 1913, and in the next year resettled in Atlanta, Georgia, where he worked in the auto accessories business. Doolittle's residency in the south later saw him employed with the Retail Credit Co. of Atlanta and New Orleans. By 1916 he had returned to New York, where he took his first steps into international affairs, working as a commercial agent with the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce. After deciding upon a career in the foreign service, Doolittle passed an examination and in January 1917 was named to his first diplomatic post, that of Vice Consul in Tiflis (now known as Tbilisi), the capital of Russian Georgia.

From the Canajoharie, New York Courier.

   Entering into his duties in February 1917, Doolittle's time in Georgia extended until 1921, and would "organize the evacuation of American citizens from Russia" that year. Doolittle would meet his future wife, Veronica Bergmann (1893-1976) during this time, and following their marriage in Batum, Russia in March 1921 had two daughters, Katherine Elena (1922-2003) and Natalia Marie Louise Doolittle. 

  In April 1921 Doolittle was transferred to the U.S. Consulate in Madras, India, and in addition to serving as vice-consul in that area later held the post of acting consul in Calcutta. In December 1921 Doolittle was attacked and bitten by a rabid dog while serving in Calcutta, an incident that was written up in several American newspapers. The Utica Herald-Dispatch relates that Doolittle underwent "the Pasteur treatment" for his injuries, and in 1923 left India to take on the Vice Consulship in Marseilles, France.

  Through the 1920s and early 1930s, Doolittle continued to advance through the diplomatic ranks, moving from foreign service office class seven to class five by 1930. This period saw him stationed as Consul at Bilbao, Spain from 1926-32 and Consul in Sarnia, Ontario from 1932-33. In the last-named year, he was transferred to Tangier, Morocco, beginning a long period of service in that country. His time in Tangier saw him designated as the first secretary of ligation in 1937 and in that year briefly held the acting consulship in Seville, Spain. Doolittle would remain in North Africa through the 1940s, and in 1941 was transferred from Tangier to Tunis, Tunisia. 

   As U.S. Consul General in Tunis, Doolittle had a front-row seat to the existing conflict between the French and native Tunisians (Tunisia then being a protectorate of France.) Among Doolittle's contacts in Tunis was Habib Bourguiba (1903-2000), a lawyer and independence activist who had been imprisoned by the French on two occasions in the 1930s. Following his return to his native country in 1943, Bourguiba made his first contact with Doolittle, in the hope that he and the United States would be of aid in the struggle for Tunisia's freedom from French occupation. Still viewed as a threat by French colonial administrators, Bourguiba was aided by Doolittle in his relocation to Egypt in March 1945, and with Doolittle's later role as U.S. Consul General in Alexandria, further aided him with a U.S. Visa so that Bourguiba could travel to the United States to attend the opening session of the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York City. Tunisia would finally win independence in 1956, with Bourguiba serving as its president from 1957-1987. Grateful for Doolittle's input in the struggle for Tunisian independence, Bourguiba later acknowledged him as "my great friend Hooker, who saved my life" during trips abroad to the United States.

Doolittle as he appeared late in his diplomatic career.

  While serving in Tunis Hooker Doolittle served as acting Consul in Morocco's capital of Rabat in 1943 and in April 1944 succeeded to the post of Consul General in Alexandria, Egypt. He remained here until 1947 when he was designated Consul General in Lahore, Pakistan, which had achieved independence from Great Britain that year. Doolittle's final years in the diplomatic service saw him as the United States representative on the United Nations Committee to Indonesia in 1950, and, following his resignation from that body retired from the foreign service in December 1950.

  Doolittle and his wife later returned to Tangier, Morocco where they would reside for the remainder of their lives. This period of Doolittle's life saw him as the director of the Tangier Gazette (a city newspaper), serve as the first president of the American School of Tangier, and until 1956 sat as a member of the legislative assembly of the International Zone of Morocco. Doolittle died in Tangier on November 30, 1966, aged 77, and later was interred at the St. Andrew's  Church Cemetery in that city.

Hooker Doolittle in Tangier.

From the Foreign Service Journal, January 1967.