The Foreign Service Journal - March 2018

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH 2018 75 horse on the ranch and was active in local steeplechases and in area rodeos. After three years Mr. Day returned to Washington, D.C., initially to the Secre- tariat and then to the Berlin Task Force created to deal with constant crises with the USSR over Berlin. Although not yet a senior officer, he attendedmeetings with President John F. Kennedy to assess U.S. responses to the rapidly changing situation in Berlin. In 1962 he was assigned to the U.S. Mis- sion inWest Berlin as chief of the political section and political adviser to the U.S. Commandant Berlin. He later became deputy chief of mission in Berlin. This period saw the confrontation between U.S. and Soviet tanks at the Checkpoint Charlie sector crossing point, and near-constant issues with the Soviets over the status of West Berlin and Allied military convoy access to the city. Mr. Day later recalled holding a phone out the office windowwhile talking to the department so people back inWashington could hear the Soviet jets buzzing the U.S. headquarters compound. He returned toWashington, D.C., in 1966 to attend the U.S. War College before becoming the director of U.N. politi- cal affairs in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs. He was then assigned to the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. In 1972 Mr. Day was named U.S. consul general in Jerusalem and served there until mid-1975. He returned to the department to become an office director in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, and then principal deputy assistant secretary in NEA. He worked closely with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in a newly cre- ated deputy assistant secretary position dedicated to the Arab-Israeli peace process until his retirement in late 1977. He and his wife moved to New York City, where Mr. Day accepted a vice president position at the United Nations Association of the United States, later becoming executive vice president. During this period he wrote a book on Jordan, East Bank, West Bank (Council on Foreign Rela- tions, 1986). Mr. Day then retired a second time to become a full-time artist; throughout his career, he had been a dedicated amateur painter. The couple moved back toWash- ington in 1992, settling in Georgetown, where he was active in the Foreign Affairs Oral History program. He rented an artist’s studio and had numerous solo exhibitions inWashington and on Cape Cod, acquir- ing a circle of collectors of his work. The Days frequently visited the Ken- nedy Center and museums about town, and spent summers in Eastham on Cape Cod. Mr. Day is survived by his wife, Carol; by two of his three sons, Frank and Thomas; two grandchildren, Alex and Ste- phen; a daughter-in-law, Lynn Foley; and by his many friends and fellow artists at the Jackson Art Center. n Myles Robert Rene Frechette, 81, a retired Foreign Service officer and former ambassador to Cameroon and Colombia, died of cancer on July 1, 2017, at Casey House Montgomery Hospice in Rockville, Md. Mr. Frechette was born on April 25, 1936, in Santiago, Chile, where his American father, who worked as a mining engineer, married Estella Aida Reyes. As a boy, he was sent to an English-speaking boarding school in Santiago to become as proficient in English as he was in Spanish. During World War II the family moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, where Mr. Frechette graduated from high school and earned a B.A. in English literature with a minor in French from the University of British Columbia. Mr. Frechette entered the Foreign Service in 1963, bringing with him a love of theater andmovies in addition to language fluency. He first served on the Cuba Crisis Task Force and later became the coordi- nator of Cuban affairs during the highly controversial 1980 Mariel Boatlift. In 1984 President Ronald Reagan appointed himU.S. ambassador to Cam- eroon. After a coup attempt was thwarted, Cameroonian President Paul Biya asked Ambassador Frechette for advice about a speech to restore peace. Later, when invited toWashington for an official visit, President Biya asked Presi- dent Reagan for, and was granted, “a fourth year of Frechette.” In 1988 Amb. Frechette was selected by the President’s Executive Exchange Program to work at Manufacturers Hanover Trust Bank inManhattan, helping develop equity trade swaps for third world countries. Building on that experience, he went to São Paulo as consul general from 1989 to 1991. From 1989 to 1993, Amb. Frechette was assistant U.S. trade representative for Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa. His last Foreign Service assignment was as President Clinton’s ambassador to Colombia from 1994 to 1997, during the most dangerous years of the drug war. Despite facing daily assassination threats fromdrug traffickers, Amb. Frechette actively engaged with the Colombian government and private sec- tor in furtherance of U.S. and Colombian interests, developing an extensive network of colleagues and friends with whomhe corresponded actively until his death. Amb. Frechette retired from the Foreign Service in 1998 and worked as an inter- national trade and business consultant at private firms such as Hills and Company and Patton Boggs, and as executive direc-