The Foreign Service Journal, April 2013

the Foreign Service journal | april 2013 61 In Memory n Robert Kerin Baron , 79, a retired U.S. Information Agency officer who later taught English at Howard Univer- sity and the University of Maryland, died on Dec. 14 at his home in McLean, Va., of cancer. Mr. Baron was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pa. He received a bache- lor’s degree in radio and television communications in 1954 and a master’s degree in English literature in 1959, both from Temple University in Philadelphia. In the late 1950s, he served in the Army Transportation Corps. Mr. Baron joined USIA in 1963 and was a cultural affairs officer in Venezu- ela, Colombia, Serbia and the former Yugoslavia. He also served as program W illiam I. Bacchus , 72, a civil servant who played a key role in drafting the Foreign Service Act of 1980, died on Jan. 23 at the Capital Caring hospice in Arlington, Va. He had esophageal cancer and liver cancer. Mr. Bacchus, who was a nephew of the science fiction writer Robert A. Hein- lein, was born in Oklahoma City, Okla., and raised in Albuquerque, N.M. He was a 1962 graduate of Princeton University. After service in the U.S. Navy, he received a doctorate in political science from Yale University in 1970. Early in his career, Mr. Bacchus was an assistant professor of government and foreign affairs at the University of Virginia and a senior staff member of the Com- mission on the Organization of the Government for the Conduct of Foreign Policy. Starting in 1975, Mr. Bacchus spent more than 15 years working in personnel management at the State Department. He played a key role in drafting the Foreign Service Act of 1980, which covered employment, career advancement and griev- ance procedures, among other major administrative procedures for members of the Foreign Service. Mr. Bacchus helped oversee a management study used in the transition from the George H.W. Bush administration to the Clinton White House in 1993. He then joined USAID as executive director of the Quality Council and later was execu- tive director of the agency’s Management Council before retiring. He worked as a consultant in foreign affairs until his death. His honors included the State Department’s Distinguished Service Award. He is the author of four books: Foreign Policy & the Bureaucratic Process: The State Department’s Country Director System (Princeton University Press, 1974), Staffing for Foreign Affairs: Personnel Systems for the 1980s and 1990s (Princeton University Press, 1983), Inside the Legislative Process: The Passage of the Foreign Service Act of 1980 (Westview Press, 1984) and The Price of American Foreign Policy: Congress, the Executive and International Affairs Funding (Pennsylvania University Press, 1993). Mr. Bacchus is survived by his wife of 47 years, Mary Dreiling Bacchus of Arling- ton, Va., and a brother. coordinator for Eastern Europe and chief of the old Yugoslavia branch of the Voice of America. Finally, he served as a director of USIA’s Arts America program, which sponsored tours of popular U.S. artists abroad, before retiring from the agency in 1988. Mr. Baron settled in the Washington, D.C., area in 1977, and taught English part-time at Prince George’s Community College from 1978 to 1987. After his USIA retirement, he became a professor of English at Howard University. He taught technical writing and advanced composition at the University of Maryland from 1996 until his retire- ment in 1999. He then worked part-time as an English composition, writing and language tutor. He also appeared in a number of plays at the McLean Commu- nity Center. Survivors include his wife of 50 years, Barbara Weglicki Baron of McLean, Va.; two daughters, Victoria Baron of Fairfax, Va., and Elizabeth Baron of Kernersville, N.C.; a brother; and one granddaughter. n Richard Holden Curtiss , 85, a retired Foreign Service officer with the U.S. Information Agency, died on Jan. 31 in Silver Springs, Md. Mr. Curtiss was born in 1927 and earned a degree in journalism at the University of Southern California, where he also received the Sigma Delta Chi award from the Society of Professional Journalists. After Army service in Berlin, he worked with United Press Interna- tional. In 1951, Mr. Curtiss joined the Foreign Service. During a 31-year diplomatic career, he served in Indonesia, Germany, Turkey, Lebanon (on three separate assignments), Iraq, Syria and Greece. He was particularly proud of his work with the Voice of America’s Arabic Service Remembering Bill Bacchus: Key Drafter of the 1980 Foreign Service Act