The Foreign Service Journal, February 2005

American cultural participants in the 1966 World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal. Among the lumi- naries were Duke Ellington, poet Langston Hughes, the Alvin Ailey dancers, choreographer and anthro- pologist Katherine Dunham, Leonard De Paur and his chorus, and actress Marpessa Dawn, star of the classic film “Black Orpheus.” In 1972, Tanen was named cultural attache at Embassy Paris, an assign- ment reserved for the most sophisti- cated among U.S. cultural diplomats. For his work in coordinating events for the American Bi-Centennial in France, he won awards not only from the U.S. government, but also was made a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. Following retirement in 1978, Mr. Tanen became executive director of the Indo-U.S. Subcommission on Education and Culture based in New York City, overseeing exchanges between India and the United States. In 1983 he was appointed American coordinator for the Festival of India. With more than 800 events taking place in 150 cities in 44 states between 1985 and 1986, the Festival of India, with a budget of $25 million, was the largest single-nation cultural program ever presented in this country. Its exhibits were displayed in the Metropolitan Museum, the Brooklyn Museum and the Public Library in New York, the National Gallery and the Freer Gallery in Washington, D.C., and the Cleveland, Boston and Philadelphia Museums. In 1986, he formed Tanen Associates to carry out international exchange projects for other govern- mental cultural and educational pro- grams. He oversaw the Festival of Indonesia, a U.S.-wide cultural pro- gram conducted from 1990 to 1992. He also coordinated the major New York Metropolitan Museum exhibit of 3,000 years of treasured Mexican art, as well as a Greek art exhibit, and con- sulted on the preservation of archeo- logical sites in Fez, Morocco, and in Sri Lanka under UNESCO auspices. Mr. Tanen was an avid horseman, and regularly rode with the Indian Army polo team during his frequent working trips to New Delhi. When he moved to New York fromWashington, D.C., he became a member of the New York City auxiliary mounted park patrol, and regularly rode with it in Central Park. Mr. Tanen and his family main- tained a home in Washington, D.C., during his long Foreign Service career. He is survived by his wife, Phyllis Cooke Tanen of New York City; his daughter Tina Tanen and two grand- children, Jesse and Sophie-Beatrice, of Los Angeles; and his brother, Ned Tanen, of Los Angeles. n Note The following paragraph was inadvertently omitted from the obit- uary for R. (Rayford) Glynn Mays Jr. , which appeared in the December 2004 issue of the FSJ : Mr. Mays was predeceased by his wife, Matilda Frances Leonardo Mays, who died in 2001. He is sur- vived by a daughter, Mildred Agate- Mays of Cambridge, Mass.; four sons, Glynn Mays of Halethorpe, Md., Robert Mays of Chapel Hill, N.C., and David Mays and Christopher Mays, both of Gaithersburg, Md.; a sister; and 16 grandchildren. F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 5 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 69 I N M E M O R Y u u Send your “In Memory” submission to: Foreign Service Journal Attn: Susan Maitra 2101 E Street NW, Washington DC 20037, or e-mail it to FSJedit@afsa.org, or fax it to (202) 338-8244. No photos, please.