The Foreign Service Journal, February 2008

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 8 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 39 o his contemporaries in the U.S. Department of State, Loy W. Hen- derson (1892-1986) was known as “Mr. Foreign Service.” During a diplomat- ic career that spanned almost 40 years (1922-1961), Henderson personified the ideal of the brilliant, hard-working Foreign Service officer completely devoted to the service of his country. Among many other honors, in 1958 Henderson became one of the very first U.S. government employees to win the President’s Award for Distinguished Federal Service. He received the first Foreign Service Cup in 1967 and, in 1976, became the only career FSO to have a State Department room named in his honor. When then- Secretary of State Henry Kissinger dedi- cated the Loy W. Henderson Auditor- ium, he rightfully described Henderson as “one of the giants of postwar diplomacy.” Although Henderson’s State Department career is well documented, relatively little is known about his life before he joined the Foreign Service at the age of 29. In particular, the story of how he became one of America’s heroes in Estonia’s War of Independence (1918-1920) — the main subject of this essay — has been forgotten. Lieutenant Henderson The son of a Methodist minister, Loy Wesley Henderson was born just a few minutes after his identical twin Roy on June 28, 1892, near Rogers, Ark. While the twins played together at age 9, Loy broke his right arm. Because the country doctor did not set the bone cor- rectly, Loy’s arm failed to heal properly. When the U.S. entered the “Great War” in April 1917, this injury ended up splitting the otherwise inseparable broth- ers apart. When the twins attempted to enlist in officer training camp after grad- uating from Northwestern University, only Roy was accepted. Dejected, Loy enrolled at the University of Denver in the fall of 1917 to study law (his brother later attended Harvard Law School). There Loy learned about the work that the American Red Cross was doing in Europe. After the United States entered World War I, the Wilson administration mobilized and militarized the ARC, issuing U.S. Army commissions to those members who agreed to work in battle zones. These volunteers were required to wear T Success came at a high cost in Russian, Estonian and even American lives. Eric A. Johnson entered the Foreign Service as a special- ist in 1999, then became a generalist in July 2007. Currently the public affairs officer in Tallinn, he previ- ously served in Moscow and Washington, D.C. FS H ERITAGE M R . F OREIGN S ERVICE : L OY H ENDERSON B EFORE JOINING THE S TATE D EPARTMENT , L OY H ENDERSON WAS A HERO IN E STONIA ’ S W AR OF I NDEPENDENCE . B Y E RIC A. J OHNSON Editor’s Note: We are pleased to institute this new periodic feature, intended to spotlight diplomats whose names many of us know only from history books or the halls of State. We welcome similar submissions, particularly about individuals whose contributions to American diplomacy have been unjustly neglected.