The Foreign Service Journal, March 2010

76 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A R C H 2 0 1 0 discussion and theorizing about foreign affairs with graduate students at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, where he had been sent as an Edward R. Murrow Fellow in 1984. From 1986 to 1988, Mr. Pistor headed USIA’s Office of North African, Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, overseeing the work of 21 public affairs officers in embassies throughout the region. In that role, he revised and re- shaped the agency’s programs to take account of major developments in the area, including Russia’s war in Afghani- stan, the Iran-Iraq War and the spread of Islamic militancy. He became USIA’s counselor in 1988, a position he held until 1991, when he was named ambassador to Malawi, where he served until 1994. He was the man on the spot there in curtailing an annual $50 million aid program because of U.S. displeasure over what he termed the country’s “abysmal human rights record.” With the subsequent collapse of the coun- try’s dictatorship, he joined interna- tional agencies and other donor countries in helping Malawi move to a democratically elected government with a multiparty system. Upon his return to Washington, Ambassador Pistor spent a year as senior adviser to then-USIA Director Joseph Duffy, before retiring in 1995. He coordinated the agency’s role in President Bill Clinton’s Summit of the Americas in Miami and directed the International Communication Studies Program at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies. During retirement, Amb. Pistor continued working in the field of for- eign affairs. Serving as a senior in- spector in the State Department’s Office of the Inspector General, he looked into policy, management and personnel issues at the American em- bassies in Germany and France and at the U.S. Mission to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Devel- opment in Paris. He then led an in- spection team to examine the State Department’s training organization, the Foreign Service Institute. In 2003, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, which over the years increasingly crippled him but seemed unable to impair his highly ac- tive social life and unfailing joie de vivre. Friends and family recall that he always enjoyed enormous popularity among his government colleagues and within a large circle of friends in re- tirement. He was valued, among other things, for his unfailing and trenchant sense of humor, which he combined with a constant interest in current af- fairs. Amb. Pistor was predeceased by his wife of 45 years, the former Shirley Scott, who died in 2002. He is survived by his daughter, Julia Pistor, who lives with her husband, David, and their three children in Los Angeles, Calif., and his son, William, who lives with his wife, Heather, in San Francisco, Calif. Eleanor Woodward Sandford , 95, a retired Foreign Service officer, died on Jan. 10 in Williamsburg, Va. Ms. Sandford was born in Ware, Mass. She was a 1931 graduate of Ware High School and a 1932 post- graduate of Northhampton School for Girls. She attendedWellesley College, where she received a degree in music theory and history in 1936. Thereafter, Ms. Sandford taught music in Massa- chusetts and Louisiana for five years. In 1943, she joined the Department of State, where she held a series of ad- ministrative positions in Washington, D.C., and abroad, joining the Foreign Service in 1955. Ms. Sandford served overseas in Bonn, Helsinki, Tokyo and Bangkok. After retiring in 1975, Ms. Sandford settled inWilliamsburg, Va., where she became active in the music commu- nity, performing regularly on the piano, recorder and flute. She was elected president of the Wednesday Morning Music Club and became an accompa- nist for theWomen’s Community Cho- rus. She was also a member of Bruton Parish Episcopal Church, and loved playing bridge and traveling with friends. Ms. Sandford is survived by two nieces, Carolyn S. Scattergood of Gil- ford, N.H., and Marcia S. Wilkins of Hanover, N.H.; one grandniece, Deb- orah S. Clough of Acton, Mass.; and two grandnephews, Joseph A. Scatter- good of Derry, N.H., and Paul S. Wilkins of Weston, Mass.; and five great-grandnieces and nephews. Memorial donations may be made to the Williamsburg Landing Benevo- lent Fund. Online condolences may be registered at www.bucktroutfuneral home.net . James Frederick “Jim” Smith , 81, a retired FSO with USAID, died on Dec. 27 in Tucson, Ariz. Mr. Smith grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, where he graduated from Shaker Heights High School. He then attended the University of Michigan, where he was a four-year letter winner in varsity wrestling and team captain under his coach, friend and mentor, Cliff Keen. While at the University of I N M E M O R Y