Contributions by Tennesseans in the Foreign Service

Allen C. Davis grew up on a farm in middle Tennessee and, after service in the U.S. Navy, entered the Foreign Service in 1956. As Chargé d’Affaires in Senegal, he oversaw the dramatic extradition of the heroin trafficker portrayed in the movie “The French Connection.” Davis went on to serve as Ambassador to Guinea and Uganda. Learn more in his full ADST oral history.

Born and raised in Chattanooga, James R. Bullington entered the Foreign Service in 1962. As deputy chief of mission, he oversaw the evacuation of Americans from Chad during fighting in 1980, and he mitigated tensions between Hutu, Tutsi, American missionaries, and the embassy presence when he was Ambassador to Burundi in 1983-86. Read his full story in ADST’s collection.

Marilyn Meyers was born and raised in Memphis and joined the Foreign Service in 1967. As chief of mission in Burma, she was among the early diplomats to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi after she was released from house arrest to discuss Burma’s path to democracy. Read Meyers’ oral history in ADST’s collection.

E. Ashley Wills was born and spent his early childhood in Jackson. He joined the Foreign Service in 1972 as a member of the U.S. Information Agency. As one of few Grenada experts in the government when the U.S. launched a hastily planned invasion to rescue U.S. medical students, he became political advisor to the commander of U.S. forces with two hours notice and accompanied troops during the 1983 invasion. He helped the commander understand the geography and competing communist factions on the island, then located an independent British journalist who had been imprisoned by communist authorities to help explain the invasion to skeptical international media. Wills went on to serve as Ambassador to Sri Lanka. Learn more in his ADST oral history.

Born and raised in Kingsport, Selwa S. Roosevelt entered foreign affairs as the spouse of a CIA officer and then as a journalist covering the White House, State Department, and Washington’s diplomatic corps. She was Chief of Protocol at the State Department throughout most of the 1980s, organizing more than a thousand visits of world leaders to the United States and directing restoration of the historic Blair House, the President’s guest house. Her oral history is in ADST’s collection.

A descendant of enslaved people, George M. Staples was born and raised in Knoxville and joined the Foreign Service in 1981. His first assignment was to El Salvador in the middle of a civil war. Despite friends being assassinated around him, Staples organized and ran the American pavilion at the San Salvador International Fair, recruiting U.S. companies to participate despite trouble in the country. He even secured Overseas Private Investment Corporation insurance for a U.S. mine operating in rebel territory. Staples went on to serve as Ambassador to Rwanda, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea and as Director General of the Foreign Service. Read his full story in ADST’s collection.

A native of Spring City, Herbert M. Wasson was a decorated Vietnam veteran serving as the chief U.S. Defense Representative in Islamabad, overseeing all American military aid to Pakistan. On August 17, 1988, Brigadier General Wasson, U.S. Ambassador Arnold Raphel, Pakistani President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and 28 others died in a mysterious plane crash. Wasson was 49 years old.