The Foreign Service Journal, January-February 2022

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2022 85 By 1955, he was active in Democratic Party politics, coming to Washington, D.C., with Congressman Charles A. Vanik of Ohio. He worked on the Kennedy cam- paign as campaign manager for Wash- ington state, and later served as President John F. Kennedy’s director of White House liaison at the State Department. After the assassination, President Lyn- don B. Johnson asked Mr. Krizek to stay on at the State Department in the Office of Congressional and Public Affairs as direc- tor of congressional services. Early in his political career, he brought together Capitol Hill staffers and veteran Kennedy organizers to formThe New Frontier Club, which met twice a month to continue seeking ways to carry out the Kennedy agenda. Mr. Krizek devoted another 20 years to government service. He championed humanitarian bills to aid foreign countries and refugee legislation for families seek- ing a better life in the United States, and remained active in the Air Force Reserve. In 1985, after retiring, he founded Christian Relief Services with just a $10,000 donation and a desire to help people in need. The organization’s first project was providing assistance overseas, sparked by Mr. Krizek’s experience working on refugee issues at the State Department. In response to the extreme poverty he witnessed in Appalachia, Mr. Krizek founded the charity Americans Helping Americans in 1990. Moved by an article detailing the high rate of suicide among American Indian teenagers, Mr. Krizek partnered with Olympic gold medalist Billy Mills (Oglala, Lakota) to formwhat is now the char- ity Running Strong for American Indian Youth. He later teamed up with Phyllis Keino, a renowned humanitarian in Kenya, and started the organization Bread and Water for Africa, which continues to be fueled by Mr. Krizek’s philosophy of empowering local populations to help themselves. Mr. Krizek attributed his success and achievements to friends and family, often quoting a favorite saying: “No man is alone if he has a family and friends who believe in his dream.” Mr. Krizek is survived by his three sons, Virginia State Delegate Paul Krizek and his wife, Tracey Navratil, Bryan Krizek and his wife, Rita, and Neil Krizek; grand- children SSgt Justin Krizek, USMC, and his wife, Jessica, Cameron Krizek and his wife, Bridget, Victoria Krizek and Khloe Krizek; great-grandchildren Dean, Eliška and Killian; a sister, Patricia Devoe of Bethesda, Md., and a sister-in-law, Betty Krizek of Durham, N.C. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Christian Relief Services at www. christianrelief.org . n Hobart Luppi, 98, a retired Foreign Service officer, died on Sept. 1, 2021, in Tarzana, Calif. Mr. Luppi was born April 12, 1923, to Mary (Godino) and Neoclite Luppi in Hamden, Conn., later moving to nearby West Haven, where he grew up during the Great Depression. He excelled aca- demically, and joined the Navy after high school to train as a fighter pilot, flying the famed Avenger aircraft, receiving his com- mission as lieutenant. After the end of World War II, Mr. Luppi was offered a captain’s commis- sion to become an aviator instructor but instead chose to leave the Navy to attend college at the University of Oklahoma on the G.I. bill. He majored in economics and became a member of the Sigma Epsilon fraternity. On graduating in 1948, he joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation and was assigned to offices in Idaho, where he met Claudine Pearson of Lewiston, Idaho. They married in 1950, two weeks before departing for his new assignment in Chicago. Mr. Luppi subsequently joined the Department of State, initially as the senior regional security officer in Cairo. After successfully completing the Foreign Ser- vice exam, he joined the Foreign Service as an economics officer assigned to New Delhi, where he served under renowned economist Ambassador John Kenneth Galbraith. Mr. Luppi focused on the South Asian subcontinent as his specialty, studying Hindi on a daily basis and becoming flu- ent in both the spoken language and the written Devanagari alphabet. He later achieved fluency in spoken Urdu during assignments to Pakistan, first as the consul general in Karachi from 1969 to 1972 and later as the deputy chief of mission in Islamabad from 1973 to 1976. Mr. Luppi was in Karachi during the December 1971 war between India and Pakistan, and he oversaw the evacuation of hundreds of Americans, Canadians and other nationals to Tehran when the Indian Air Force granted a two-hour pause in the air raids. Mr. Luppi stayed full-time at the consulate with a number of other Foreign Service officers and the naval attaché until the war ended on Dec. 16, 1971, but his family and other evacuees were not able to return until Dec. 29. Between overseas assignments, the family of six lived in Northern Virginia, where Mr. Luppi took up horseback riding, which became a favorite pastime. His assignments at the Department of State in Washington, D.C., included working as a senior assistant for Assistant Secretary of State for Security and Consular Affairs Barbara M. Watson. Mr. Luppi last served as consul general