Contributions by New Yorkers in the Foreign Service

Philip Habib was born and raised in Brooklyn. After fighting fires in Idaho, serving in the U.S. Army in Europe during World War II, and writing crop reports in California, he joined the Foreign Service in 1949. In positions ranging from Ambassador to Under Secretary, he became a prominent peace negotiator, playing roles in negotiations to end the Vietnam War, maintain stability on the Korean peninsula, and bring peace to the Middle East. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1982 for his role as mediator to end fighting in southern Lebanon. Read his oral history in ADST’s collection.

Kempton Jenkins grew up in Long island and joined the Foreign Service in 1950. Serving in Moscow, he participated in tense negotiations with Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko over a divided Germany in 1962, winning continued Allied access to West Berlin. He also negotiated America’s first trade agreement with Communist China. Read more in his full oral history.

Francis Terry McNamara was born and raised in Troy. He joined the Foreign Service in 1956. As Consul General in Can Tho in the final days of the Vietnam War, he pushed back against orders to evacuate only his American staff, instead securing permission to lead a daring water evacuation down the Mekong Delta, saving 300 American and Vietnamese staff and family members. McNamara went on to serve as Ambassador to Gabon and Cape Verde. Learn more in his ADST oral story.

Kenneth M. Quinn spent his early childhood in the Bronx and joined the Foreign Service in 1968, beginning his career as a rural development advisor in the Mekong Delta during the Vietnam War. He took part in more than one hundred hours of helicopter combat operations over six years in Vietnam, earning the U.S. Army Air Medal, and saved the life of a young Vietnamese boy shot in the stomach. He would later serve as President Ford’s interpreter during meetings with the South Vietnamese as Saigon was falling, and went on to serve as Ambassador to Cambodia. Read his account in ADST’s collection.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, Mosina Jordan joined the U.S. Agency for International Development in 1982. She became the first Black woman appointed as Ambassador from the ranks of USAID, leading the U.S. Embassy in the Central African Republic. When her embassy was caught in the crossfire of a military mutiny, she negotiated with the government to prevent targeting of the embassy and those sheltering there. She called in U.S. Marines to secure the compound and arranged for French military assistance to safely evacuate American citizens and staff. Read her story in ADST’s collection.

Charles Floyd Hegna was born in Brooklyn and joined USAID in 1966. On December 3, 1984, terrorists hijacked his Kuwait Airways flight and forced it to land in Tehran, demanding the release of imprisoned terrorists. The hijackers executed Hegna and dumped his body on the tarmac. Iranian security forces stormed the plane six days later, freeing remaining passengers.

Born in Troy, Arnold Lewis Raphel joined the Foreign Service in 1966. He served on the State Department’s Special Operations Group set up to free American Embassy staff held hostage by Iranian militants in Tehran and later as Ambassador to Pakistan. On August 17, 1988, Raphel, Pakistani President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and 29 others died in a mysterious plane crash.

Raised in Queens, Julian Leotis Bartley, Sr. joined the Foreign Service in the early 1960s. He was serving as consul general in Kenya when he, his son (an embassy intern), 10 other Americans, and more than 200 others were killed in Al Qaeda’s August 7, 1998, bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi.

James Mollen was born in Birmingham, NY, and joined the Department of State in 2002. Mollen was serving as special advisor to Iraq’s Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research when, on November 24, 2004, he was killed by a gunman near the fortified sector of central Baghdad.

John Michael Granville was born in Buffalo and served in the Peace Corps before joining USAID. Heading a program to provide solar-powered radios to people in South Sudan, Granville and his driver were killed in Khartoum by a gunman from the terrorist group Ansar al-Tawhid on January 1, 2008.