Contributions by Arizonans in the Foreign Service

Fred Charles Thomas was born at Fort Huachuca and joined the Foreign Service in 1952. As a liaison officer in 1975 to the International Commission of Control and Supervision in Vietnam, the international monitoring body established under the Paris Peace Accords, he convinced the U.S. military to begin evacuating non-official Americans weeks before Saigon fell, saving countless lives. Read his full story in ADST’s collection.

Michael Pistor grew up in Tucson and joined the U.S. Information Agency in 1959. As Public Affairs Officer in London in 1976, he coordinated events to mark America’s Bicentennial, reinforcing the special U.S.-British relationship with a historical exhibition and ceremonial visitors from each of the 13 states that had once been British colonies. Pistor went on to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Malawi. Learn more in his ADST interview.

Born in Tucson, Betty Crites Dillon was drawn to international affairs when she worked supporting communications at the United Nations Charter Conference in San Francisco after World War II. Dillon was the first woman to serve as a Peace Corps country director, in both Tunisia and Sri Lanka. After earning her pilot’s license, she became involved in international air travel negotiations with the Civil Aeronautics Board and went on to become U.S. Chief of Mission at the International Civil Aviation Organization, the first American woman to serve as a resident permanent representative to a United Nations agency. Read more about her career in her ADST oral history.

Born in Bisbee, William Milam joined the Foreign Service in 1962. As U.S. Ambassador to Bangladesh, he initiated Operation Sea Angel, convincing the Pentagon to divert a Marine Expeditionary Brigade returning from Operation Desert Storm to provide desperately needed logistics support to respond to a cyclone that had killed tens of thousands. Milam’s leadership saved tens of thousands of survivors. Read more in his full oral history.

After spending some formative school years in Scottsdale, Joseph Wilson IV joined the Foreign Service in 1976. He became a public figure in retirement after a 2002 trip to Niger to investigate whether Iraq was trying to buy yellowcake uranium, but he is known in the Foreign Service for his role as Chargé d’Affaires in Baghdad when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. Wilson engaged in bare knuckles diplomacy with Saddam Hussein, sheltered more than 150 American citizens in the embassy, worked to free more than 100 held as “human shields,” and ultimately organized the evacuation of several thousand people from Iraq. He later served as Ambassador to Gabon. Learn more in his ADST oral history.

Raised in Nogales, Francisco Zamora attended the University of Arizona and joined USAID in 1980. As USAID’s representative at the American Foreign Service Association, the union representing the Foreign Service, he worked to ensure staff in Afghanistan and Iraq were equipped to serve in hostile environments. Read his full story in ADST’s collection.

After graduating with a law degree from Arizona State University and serving as the first lady of Arizona, Harriet “Hattie” Babbitt was named U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS) in 1993. She became an advocate for democracy in the Americas, playing a key role in reinstating Jean-Baptiste Aristide as the elected leader of Haiti and returning constitutional order to Guatemala. She also served as deputy administrator of USAID. Learn more in her full oral history.

ADST also remembers those Arizonans in the Foreign Affairs community who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to America. Two are recorded on the American Foreign Service Association’s Memorial Plaque:

Keith Edward Taylor was born in Tucson and enlisted in the U.S. Navy after high school, reaching the rank of lieutenant commander with tours in Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo. Called up as a Naval Reserve Officer to serve in the U.S. Embassy in Iraq as a contracting officer, Taylor died in a rocket attack on January 29, 2005.

From his home in Chandler, Terry L. Gilden joined the U.S. Army, becoming a member of the Special Forces and serving as a bodyguard to the U.S. Ambassador at our embassy in Beirut. On April 18, 1983, he and 62 others (including 17 Americans) were killed when a car carrying a bomb crashed through the gates of the embassy.