Contributions by Connecticuters in the Foreign Service

John A. Baker, Jr., grew up in Westport and joined the Foreign Service in 1950. He was serving as Deputy Chief of Mission in Czechoslovakia during the so-called “Prague Spring” and predicted the Soviet invasion of August 1968. Baker oversaw efforts to assist American citizens during the invasion and ensured the safety of embassy staff. Read more on ADST’s website.

Born and raised in Norwich, Thomas P. Melady joined the Foreign Operations Administration (a predecessor of today’s U.S. Agency for International Development – USAID) in 1954 and served in Ethiopia. Melady later served as U.S. Ambassador to Burundi, to Uganda, and finally to the Holy See, where he played a key role in convincing the Vatican to recognize the state of Israel. Read his full oral history in ADST’s collection.

Eric Chetwynd attended high school in New Britain and joined USAID in 1962. Chetwynd served in Indonesia and Korea and became an expert on urban development and decentralization. He went on to pioneer decentralization programs for former Soviet and Warsaw Pact states. Learn more in his complete ADST oral history.

Born and raised in New Britain, Philip S. Kaplan attended the University of Connecticut before joining the Foreign Service in 1967. As U.S. Ambassador and Deputy Representative to the 22-nation Vienna negotiations on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, Kaplan helped negotiate the historic 1990 treaty that reduced force levels in Europe and ended the Cold War. His full oral history is on ADST’s website.

After spending her childhood in Hartford, Zandra Flemister became the first Black woman to be hired as a Secret Service Special Agent in 1974. After transferring to the Foreign Service, she fought visa fraud during tours that included Argentina, Korea, and Pakistan, all while raising and advocating on behalf of her autistic son. She served as the senior State Department representative at the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center, ensuring interagency communication that guarded against terrorists and criminals obtaining visas. Her husband and fellow Foreign Service Officer John Collinge tells her story in ADST’s collection.

Thomas J. Dodd grew up in Lebanon, Connecticut, and first entered the State Department in 1981 teaching Central American history at the Foreign Service Institute. President Clinton appointed Dodd as Ambassador to Uruguay in 1993 and to Costa Rica in 1997. Dodd helped Washington understand Uruguay’s role in the recently established MERCOSUR, the Southern Common Market, and how to best approach Montevideo in promoting more open trade in the Western Hemisphere. Learn more in his ADST oral history.

Hartford’s Joseph William Grainger served as a USAID officer in Vietnam. On October 8, 1964, he became the first American civilian official captured by the Viet Cong. After five months in captivity, he attempted to escape but was shot by prison camp guards on March 17, 1965.

Connecticut native Barbara L. Schell joined the Foreign Service in 1966 and served in Iran, Algeria, Syria, Chad, and Egypt. She then became political advisor to the U.S. military’s commander of humanitarian operations in northern Iraq. Schell and 25 others were killed on April 14, 1994, when their Black Hawk helicopter was brought down by friendly fire.

Barbara C. Heald, a native of Stamford, served as a U.S. Air Force captain before joining the Army’s Project and Contracting Office as a Department of Defense civilian. Heald died on January 29, 2005 when a rocket hit the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq.