The Foreign Service Journal, May 2019

70 MARCH 2019 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL per’s farming family in central Illinois, the fourth of five sons and one daughter. Growing up during the Depression gave Mr. King a deep understanding of the value of community and togetherness. This appreciation was demonstrated by his minister and community when his town, Beason, Ill., sponsored Mr. King to study divinity at Illinois Wesleyan University. After graduating in May 1943, Mr. King joined the U.S. Army Air Force, serving during World War II as a cryp- tographer and air traffic controller in the Assam province of northeast India, in the foothills of the Himalayas. Mr. King spent his war years immersed in impoverished yet culturally rich India, an experience that opened his eyes to a new and different world, giving him inspiration that guided his future career choice. After the war, Mr. King returned to school on the GI Bill to earn a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Stud- ies in 1947. Mr. King then joined the U.S. Depart- ment of State as a research analyst. In 1949, married with wife and first child in tow, Mr. King received his first posting to Kabul as a foreign affairs analyst. After returning to the United States for a yearlong stint studying Persian at Princeton University, Mr. King was assigned to Tehran, arriving imme- diately after the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and installation of the shah in August 1953. Two years later he was formally appointed as an FSO and assigned to Isfahan, where his fourth child was born. In 1957 Mr. King was tasked with opening the first official U.S. consul- ate in Peshawar. In 1960 he became a commercial officer at the U.S. embassy in Bonn. He moved back to Washington, D.C., in 1963 and was asked to join the group assisting Sargent Shriver in forming the Peace Corps. He was then assigned the position of Peace Corps deputy director for North Africa, Near East and South Asia. In 1967 he attended the National Industrial War College at Fort McNair, after which he moved to the U.S. embassy in London. After the death of his wife, Elizabeth, in 1971, he served his final posting as consul general in Lahore. Mr. King retired in March 1974 and returned to his first passion—creative writing. In the ensuing years, he spent time with his family while continuing to travel the world and publish books of poetry. After living in North Carolina, Maine, California and England, he moved to Blacksburg, Va., to be near his oldest son and grandchildren. Mr. King is survived by his younger brother, three sons, two grandchildren and a life’s collection of dear friends. Mr. King would have appreciated, in lieu of flowers, that charitable contributions be made to the American Red Cross, P.O. Box 37839, Boone IA 50037-0839. n Arthur Winston Lewis , 92, a retired Foreign Service officer and for- mer ambassador, passed away peacefully on Jan. 10 in Wilmette, Ill. Mr. Lewis was born July 1, 1926, in New York City, the oldest son of Jamaican immigrants. A student at Dartmouth College, he left to enlist in the U.S. Navy in 1943 and served for 23 years until 1966. He returned to Dartmouth to work with the Navy ROTC and teach naval science while still on active duty. He completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in government at Dartmouth in 1966. In 1966, Mr. Lewis joined the United States Information Agency. With the support of the Ford Foundation, in 1967 Mr. Lewis created an expanded minority recruitment program for USIA, target- ing African American, Latino and Native Americans enrolled in universities around the nation. The program brought students to Washington, D.C., for expanded training in history, language and international affairs as preparation for successfully taking the Foreign Service entrance exam. Mr. Lewis began his own Foreign Service career in 1969 when he was assigned by USIA to the U.S. embassy in Bucharest, where he promoted Ameri- can music as a forum for engaging the Romanian people in Western culture. When the American jazz-rock band Blood, Sweat & Tears visited Romania in 1970, Romanian officials sought to shut down a performance, but Mr. Lewis successfully negotiated a continuation of the tour. Mr. Lewis went on to serve in diplo- matic missions in Eastern Europe and Africa. He also played a significant role in expanding opportunities for racial and ethnic minorities in the U.S. diplomatic corps. From 1972 to 1974, Mr. Lewis served as cultural affairs officer at Embassy Lusaka. From there he moved to Ethiopia and then, in 1977, to Lagos, where he continued his work for USIA until he was appointed as the agency’s director of African affairs in 1979. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan nom- inatedMr. Lewis to be U.S. ambassador to Sierra Leone. He served at the embassy in Freetown until his retirement in 1986.