The Foreign Service Journal, April 2013

the Foreign Service journal | February 2013 65 School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He met his future wife, Jeannette, at Syr- acuse University in 1943, when they were both graduate students there. The couple married in Dublin, Ireland, in 1946. In 1944 Mr. Menter joined the Depart- ment of State as an auxiliary, and was sent as a vice consul to Dublin, where he headed the visa office at the consulate general. He later held a variety of assign- ments in the management field, both in Washington, D.C., and in Australia, Yugoslavia, Ghana, West Germany, the USSR and Great Britain. Over the years his responsibilities took him to 35 other countries for vary- ing periods. In 1970 he was a Foreign Service inspector, but that assignment was cut short when he was seconded to the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency to serve as its executive director. Subsequently, he was appointed execu- tive director of the Department of State’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs. During his time with ACDA, Mr. Menter was responsible for providing management support for the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks, which alter- nated between Helsinki and Vienna, and ultimately for establishing Geneva as a permanent venue acceptable to both the American and Soviet negotiating teams. When he retired in 1980, Mr. Menter had been serving for some three years as a deputy inspector general of the Depart- ment of State, including the Foreign Service. In 1977 and 1980 he received Superior Honor Awards. Mr. Menter remained a member of the American Foreign Service Associa- tion ever since joining the Foreign Ser- vice. He was also a member, for some 30 years, of the International Country Club of Fairfax, Va., and a life member of the National Rifle Association. His hobbies included collecting an eclectic variety of items of personal appeal, golf, single- malt scotch and hunting. Mr. Menter’s wife of 56 years, Jean- nette, predeceased him in 2002. Survi- vors include a son, Timothy, of Newport Coast, Calif., and a sister, Joyce Wallace of Shaker Heights, Ohio. Memorial contributions may be sent to the Sanford and Jeannette C. Menter Endowed Graduate Scholarship Fund at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs of Syracuse University, 200 Eggers Hall, Syracuse NY 13244. That fund was established by Mr. Menter in 2004 in memory of his wife. n Louis John Nigro Jr. , 65, a retired Foreign Service officer and former ambassador, died on Jan. 1 in Washing- ton, D.C., after a struggle with cancer. Mr. Nigro was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1947. He grew up in the Long Island town of Lynbrook and graduated from Malvern High School, where he was an Eagle Scout. He graduated with a B.A. in history from the University of Virginia in 1969 and earned a Ph.D. in history from Vanderbilt University in 1979. From 1973 to 1974, Mr. Nigro was a Fulbright Scholar in Rome. Prior to join- ing the Foreign Service, he served in the California Army National Guard, taught modern European history at Stanford University, and was a training and opera- tions planner for the Department of Defense. Mr. Nigro had a distinguished 30-year career in the Foreign Service beginning in 1980. He served twice in Chad, the second time as ambassador from 2007 to 2010. Other assignments included stints as a deputy chief of mission in Havana, Conakry and Vatican City, and an earlier posting to Port-au-Prince. He also served as Diplomat in Residence at the Uni- versity of Houston and a professor of international affairs at the U.S. Army War College. After retirement he continued his work in the State Department for the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. Ambassador Nigro is the author of The New Diplomacy in Italy: American Propaganda and U.S.–Italian Relations, 1917–1919 (Peter Lang Publishing, 1999), and also contributed numerous schol- arly articles to various publications. Amb. Nigro is survived by his wife of 19 years, Tarja, of Washington, D.C. n Mark Palmer, 71, a retired Foreign Service officer and former ambassador, died on Jan. 28 of melanoma at his home in Washington, D.C. Robie Marcus Hooker Palmer was born on July 14, 1941, in Ann Arbor, Mich. His father was a naval officer and the family moved often during his youth. After graduating from a private high school in Vermont, Mr. Palmer went to Yale University, where he majored in Russian studies and took courses in the Soviet Union. He was a Freedom Rider in the South during the civil rights move- ment of the early 1960s, and organized demonstrations in Baltimore, Atlanta and Alabama. Upon graduation from Yale in 1963, Mr. Palmer worked as a newspaper and television journalist in New York. He joined the Foreign Service in 1964. During a 26-year diplomatic career, Mr. Palmer served overseas in New Delhi, Moscow and the former Yugosla- via, becoming an expert on Soviet affairs during the 1980s. Mr. Palmer wrote speeches for three presidents and six Secretaries of State, serving as the sole speechwriter for Sec- retary of State Henry A. Kissinger from 1973 to 1975. He was also the author of widely used State Department hand-