Biography – Association for Diplomatic Studies & Training

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Buck, Hala Lababidi

In this personal, multifaceted memoir, Hala Buck, a professional artist and integrative therapist, reflects on her mixed Muslim and Christian family, her marriage to an American diplomat, their nomadic life between the Arab World and North America, raising a “Third Culture” daughter, and navigating cultures. Buck’s story finds her as...

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In 2001 Helen Lyman began writing about the more humorous incidents she witnessed as the wife of an American diplomat. She observed the overseas life with a somewhat detached and wry view, through the prism of someone who never thought of herself as being born to the trappings of diplomatic life. Her book recounts incidents from South Korea, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Africa, and Washington and stories about the famous—Nelson Mandela, Al and Tipper Gore, Hillary Clinton—and the not so famous, whom she loved, such as her first grade students in Nigeria. She wrote about her own peripatetic professional life, moving back and forth between the United States and abroad. From housewife to family counselor, to teacher, to computer trainer for the State Department, she records the human touches of each of those roles and in the process her own development. Just as she was looking forward to a rich retirement life, illness struck. Cancer came in 1987, with all its attendant exigencies, followed by seven years of remission and ending with cancer’s return. In those later years she wrote about her early life, her family, the loss of a child, and her dreams for herself and her country. The work is thus not a traditional memoir, but a rich journey. Near the end of her life, she turned to poetry and recorded her final thoughts in that way. Born in 1935 in San Francisco, California, to parents who had fled Nazi Germany, Helen Lyman graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in Social Welfare. After marriage to Princeton Lyman, she worked as a bank teller in Boston, Massachusetts, while her husband attended graduate school. She acquired a master’s degree in counseling from Bowie State College and worked as a family counselor for seven years in Washington, D.C. Posted overseas with her husband, she worked as a first grade teacher in Ethiopia and Nigeria. In 1991, the State Department hired her as a computer trainer. Her work for the State Department took her to China, El Salvador, Turkey, South Korea, Israel, Swaziland, and Botswana, as well as South Africa, where her husband was ambassador. The Lymans have three daughters and eleven grandchildren. Helen Lyman began work on this memoir in 2001. She died from cancer in 2008.

Not to the Manner Born

Lyman, Helen

In 2001 Helen Lyman began writing about the more humorous incidents she witnessed as the wife of an American diplomat. She observed the overseas life with a somewhat detached and wry view, through the prism of someone who never thought of herself as being born to the trappings of diplomatic...

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Lu Rudel describes his unique experiences with U.S. economic aid programs during some of the most dramatic international events since World War II. These include Iran after the fall of Mosaddegh (1956–1960); Turkey after the military coup of 1960 and continuing to the start of the Cuban Missile crisis; India after the death of Nehru (1965–1970); and Pakistan following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988. Rudel’s firsthand observations on Iran differ markedly from the description of events commonly espoused by some historians and journalists. His memoir also provides a firsthand account of the political metamorphosis over the past half-century of the “Group of 77” nations, as they attempted to employ the UN’s economic development agencies to press for a “New International Economic Order.” These experiences lead him to draw important lessons about the conduct and effectiveness of foreign aid. After retirement in 1980 Rudel launched a second career, applying lessons learned from his work in international development to creating and running a thousand-acre land development and resort in rural Appalachia. His experiences over the ensuing thirty years as an entrepreneur track the relentless growth of government regulations and the disappearance of community support institutions such as local banks, now being replaced by megabanks. A final chapter examines global trends of the past eighty years in four critical areas of change affecting our lives––population growth, science and technology, economic systems, and political structures––to draw some surprising conclusions and projections. LUDWIG “LU” RUDEL, a Holocaust survivor from Vienna, came to the United States in 1938. A 1952 graduate of City College of New York, his graduate studies at NYU were interrupted by two years of service in the U.S. Army. In 1956 he joined the International Cooperation Administration and served succeeding U.S. foreign aid programs in various roles until 1980. He also developed and ran the Glendale Yearound community in Appalachian Pennsylvania until 2002.

Memoirs of an Agent for Change in International Development

Rudel, Ludwig

Lu Rudel describes his unique experiences with U.S. economic aid programs during some of the most dramatic international events since World War II. These include Iran after the fall of Mosaddegh (1956–1960); Turkey after the military coup of 1960 and continuing to the start of the Cuban Missile crisis; India...

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Book Category: Biography