Contributions by New Jerseyans in the Foreign Service

Raised in New Jersey, Edward W. Clark began his career as a diplomatic courier in 1941 and joined the foreign service in 1945. As Consul in Asmara in the 1950s, he negotiated the expansion of the U.S. military presence at Kagnew Station in Eritrea. His full story is in ADST’s collection.

William C. Harrop spent his childhood in New Brunswick, NJ. After joining the Foreign Service in 1954, he went on to become a five time ambassador. As Ambassador to Guinea in the 1970s, he used U.S. assistance as leverage to convince the government to close their airport to Soviet observation flights over the U.S. Atlantic Fleet. He also dedicated the Embassy’s discretionary funds to provide soccer balls emblazoned with a “From the American People” seal to impoverished Guinean youth. Read his full oral history and his soccer story in ADST’s collection.

Born and raised in Lakewood, Morton Abramowitz joined the Foreign Service in 1959. While serving as the Political Advisor to the Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, he was among the first U.S. officials to press the Japanese government to cover the costs of U.S. military bases in Japan. Abramowitz later served as Ambassador to Thailand and Turkey. His oral history is on ADST’s website.

Born in Orange, William B. Whitman joined the Foreign Service in 1960. As the commercial attache in Belgrade in 1970, he helped McDonnell Douglas beat out French competitors and make a sale of DC-10s to JAT, Yugoslavia’s national airlines. He did the same for Boeing 747s and Alitalia when he was economic minister in Rome in the 1980s. Read the rest of his oral history on the ADST website.

Herbert G. Hagerty was born and raised in East Orange and entered the Foreign Service in 1965. While U.S. attention in November 1979 was on the American hostages taken at our embassy in Tehran, Hagerty was political counselor in Pakistan, facing a mob of ten thousand outside the gates of our embassy in Islamabad, fomented by false Iranian reports of U.S. attacks on Islamic holy sites. Hagerty sheltered in the embassy’s vault with more than 130 embassy staff while rioters burned the building down around them. Read his dramatic story and his full oral history on ADST’s website.

Anna Romanski grew up in Belford and became a guide in 1969 with the U.S. Information Agency’s “Education USA” exhibit touring the Soviet Union, answering questions about America from people in Baku, Tashkent, and Novosibirsk. After joining the Foreign Service Office with USIA in 1974, she went on to coordinate youth exchanges that introduced America to thousands of young people from around the world. Read her full story in ADST’s collection.

After spending his formative years in Mountainside, Joseph Saloom joined the Foreign Service in 1973. An economic officer by specialty, he helped negotiate the rescheduling of international debt of both the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia after each dissolved, helping to foster economic stability for their successor states. He later worked to recover Iraqi funds that had been hidden offshore by Saddam Hussein and his regime. His full oral history is on ADST’s website.

Carol Colloton was born and raised in Newark. She joined the Foreign Service in 1976. In 1995, Collonton became the Refugee Coordinator in Uganda, working to facilitate the return of those displaced during the Rwandan Genocide amidst widespread tensions. Read about her close calls with plane crashes and landmines in her full oral history in the ADST collection.