The Foreign Service Journal, February 2007

Agency. Accompanying him, she lived and worked in Afghanistan, Poland and the former Soviet Union before returning to Washington, where she joined the Commerce Department in 1981. Mrs. Harrod headed Foreign Commercial Service offices at Em- bassy Warsaw and at the U.S. mission to the European Community office in Brussels. In 1996 she was appointed deputy assistant secretary in charge of the Foreign Commercial Service’s overseas operations, serving until 1999. Her final government assign- ment was as minister-counselor for commercial affairs in Ottawa. She retired in 2003. Mrs. Harrod was predeceased by her parents and her only sibling, a sister, Helen D. Rosenberg. She is survived by her husband, of New London, N.H.; a son, William, cur- rently a senior aerospace engineer- ing major at Syracuse University; two nieces, Nancy Rosenberg of Sutton, Mass., and Jane Rosenberg of Brooklyn, N.Y.; three grandnieces and one grandnephew. Donations in Mrs. Harrod’s mem- ory may be made to the Tracy Memorial Library, New London NH 03257. Frances S. Hutton , 95, widow of the late FSO Churchill Hutton, died on Nov. 2 in McLean, Va., of conges- tive heart failure. Born Frances Peabody Stearns on Oct. 21, 1911, in Canon City, Colo., Mrs. Hutton was raised in a cavalry family. Her father, a World War II general, founded the U.S. Army School of Military Government, later known as U.S. Army Civil Affairs. Mrs. Hutton’s ancestors comprise an extraordinary Virginia family. One, Valentine Peyton, captained a ship in the 1609 Jamestown expedition. Others served in the House of Bur- gesses. Richard Henry Lee, another direct ancestor, offered the crucial resolution to declare independence, signing the Declaration and the Constitution. Another, Levin Powell, was a leading staff officer under George Washington. And John Stearns, a med- ical pioneer, founded the New York Medical Society in 1805. Mrs. Hutton married her hus- band, a Foreign Service officer, in May 1934, and proved ideally suited to diplomatic life. Hosting dinners and cocktail parties in their home, she exchanged ideas with leading international figures of her time at posts in Dublin, Mexico City, Guate- mala City, Istanbul, London, Guaya- quil, Winnipeg and Washington. Family members recall that she often joked that she could, and once did, smile through a migraine headache, talk geopolitics and flick a locust off her shoulder at the same time. Wherever she lived, she made friends and enthusiastically involved herself in the life of the local interna- tional community as a volunteer, men- tor and ambassador for her country. In 1953, she was presented to Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace. As a friend said, Frances Hutton had lived among people of all nationalities and all stations, but when she entered a room all the women in it became ladies and all the men, gentlemen. Beneath vivacious humor and a radiant smile, she was a far-sighted observer of world affairs. As the end of World War II neared, she saw that most of the Third Reich’s scientific talent lay in parts of Germany the Soviets would soon occupy, and that such talent would then be turned against the U.S. She urged her hus- band to draft a plan for the U.S. to apprehend leading German engi- neers before the Soviets did. He did, and America thereby gathered most of the leading German experts in rocketry, nuclear science, elec- tronics and advanced physics — men who helped found the Ameri- can space program. Besides her husband, who had a distinguished career, and her son Paul C. Hutton III, who served on State’s Policy Planning Staff in the 1980s, Mrs. Hutton was closely asso- ciated with the Foreign Service through her uncles, James Grafton Rogers, a former assistant secretary of State, and James B. Stewart, DCM in Vienna and later ambassador to Nicaragua. After 30 years abroad, the Hut- tons settled in the Washington, D.C., area. Following the death of her hus- band in 1983, Mrs. Hutton devoted herself to her family. Living in McLean, she was an active Episco- palian, a member of AFSA and a sup- porter of the environment. She was a Colonial Dame, a member of Diplo- matic and Consular Officers Retired and the Army-Navy Club. She is sur- vived by three sons, Paul C. Hutton III of Annandale, Va., C. Powell Hutton of North Arlington, Va., and C. Peabody Hutton of Hong Kong; nine grandchildren; and one great- granddaughter. George A. Naifeh , 82, a retired FSO, died at University Hospital in Augusta, Ga., on Nov. 9 after an extended illness. Mr. Naifeh was born in Kiefer, Okla., in 1924, the youngest of six children of Shahada and Saida Nai- feh. On graduating from high school, he joined the Army Air Forces and served as a staff sergeant during F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 7 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 77 I N M E M O R Y