Contributions by Kansans to the Foreign Service

After spending his formative years as an Army brat in Leavenworth, Richard Parker attended Kansas State University. After serving as an infantry officer in World War II, including time as a prisoner of war, he joined the Foreign Service in 1949. Parker was political counselor in Cairo during the 1967 Six-Day War with Israel. He recovered classified documents from a U.S. Agency for International Development office in Taiz, Yemen, that had been overrun by a mob, and then oversaw the evacuation of all Americans from Egypt. He went on to ambassadorships to Algeria, Lebanon, and Morocco. His full oral history is in ADST’s collection.

Hans “Tommy” Tuch emigrated from Germany to Kansas City in 1938 at age 14. After serving as a U.S. Army paratrooper in World War II, he joined the Foreign Service and returned to Germany to run the American cultural center in Frankfurt, helping to reintegrate Germany into the community of western democratic nations. His storied career in public diplomacy also included directing Voice of America (VOA) responses to Soviet violations of the nuclear test ban treaty and launching a VOA Farsi language service at the beginning of the Iran hostage crisis. Read his three-part oral history (1, 2, 3) in ADST’s collection.

Raised in Concordia, Eldon Erickson went to Emporia State University and joined the Foreign Service as a clerk in 1946. When he was Economic Counselor in Beirut in 1967, Palestinian exiles attacked the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. Erickson helped destroy classified materials and then personally contacted many Americans to ensure their evacuation. His own family was caught up in the chaos, getting out thanks to contacts with Pan Am and successful negotiations with the Israeli government to prevent the bombing of the Beirut airport. His story can be read here.

Born in Syracuse, Kansas, Nancy Forbord worked in many roles for the Foreign Service along with her husband Thomas. Her positions ranged from training officers in negotiation skills to training Foreign Service families on adapting to life overseas. More of her story and her observations on the impact of Foreign Service life on children and families can be found here.

Lewis W. Bowden grew up in Wichita. As an ensign in the U.S. Navy, he was part of a mission to set up a secret weather station in Ussuriysk in the Soviet Union’s far east at the end of World War II to provide weather data for air and naval operations against Japan. During the mission, he couriered classified documents from their site to the Assistant U.S. Naval Attache in Vladivostok, an experience that led him to join the Foreign Service in 1952. He became a Russia expert, serving in Moscow from 1958-61, during the crisis surrounding the shooting down of Gary Powers in his U-2, and returning again in 1970 as Economic and Commercial Counselor, when he pursued negotiations to liberalize trade relations. His full oral history is in ADST’s collection.

David Lambertson grew up on a farm near Fairview, Kansas, and joined the Foreign Service in 1963. After serving as a political officer in the provincial reporting unit covering the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, he became U.S. spokesperson at the Paris Peace Talks in 1972, explaining to international reporters progress in talks between North and South Vietnam while National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger held secret negotiations with the head of the North Vietnamese delegation that would win them the Nobel Peace Prize. Lambertson went on to serve as Ambassador to Thailand. Read the rest of his story on ADST’s website.