After graduating high school in 1958, Mr. Kinsey attended Northwestern University but soon transferred to the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. In 1962 he entered the Foreign Service—at that time the youngest officer ever to have done so. He was posted first to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where he did political reporting and consular work under the ever-watchful Frances Willis, America’s first female career ambassador. Mr. Kinsey was in Stuttgart from 1965 to 1966 as a consular officer. A German speaker, he also gave many presentations on U.S. policy in Vietnam to German civic associations and student groups. Early in 1967, Mr. Kinsey was the first civilian volunteer for the Vietnam Training Center in Arlington, Va., an interagency facility where hundreds of civilian and military officers trained in the Vietnamese language and in CORDS programs to pacify rural South Vietnam, including bridge-building, health improvement, and the organization of hamlet defenses. After CORDS training, Mr. Kinsey served nearly two years in Long An province, one of the country’s most embattled areas. Later, he worked for the Pacification Studies Group under Ambassador William Colby. In 1970 the American Foreign Service Association awarded Mr. Kinsey the Averell Harriman Award for “courage, creativity and disciplined dissent.” USAID also awarded him its meritorious service award. Between 1970 and 1971, he served in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, briefing Secretary of State William Rogers and others daily on allied efforts to sever the trail network in Laos through which North Vietnam funneled military supplies to THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | APRIL-MAY 2025 87
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