The Foreign Service Journal, May 2020

78 MAY 2020 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Mr. Keiter was born in March 1931, at the hospital of the University of Chicago, where his father, an ordained Lutheran minister, was completing his Ph.D. in education. In 1936 the family moved to Oneonta, N.Y., where his father had become a professor at Hartwick College. Mr. Keiter attended Oneonta High School, graduat- ing in 1948 as valedictorian. Mr. Keiter graduated from Carleton College in Minnesota in 1952 with a degree in government and international relations. He then spent a year in Den- mark as a Fulbright scholar. He earned a master’s degree in Middle East studies at the School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. As a Ford Foundation Fellow based in Cairo from 1955 to 1956, he traveled from Tehran to Casablanca, making stops in Israel and Sudan. A high point was two weeks spent with an Egyptian family in a village near Luxor. In 1957 Mr. Keiter became a Foreign Service officer with the State Depart- ment. He was also drafted into the U.S. Army, where he served for two years in the Carolinas and Georgia as an eco- nomic specialist before taking up his position with the State Department. His Foreign Service career was divided almost evenly between Wash- ington and overseas posts. He spent four years as an economic officer in Tunisia, and three years as principal officer of the U.S. consulate in Bayda, Libya—near the Greek ruins at Cyrene—where King Idris was building a new capital. Mr. Keiter served as the embassy’s contact with the foreign ministry and interpreter for the U.S. ambassador’s meetings with the king, who avoided Tripoli, the existing capital. Shortly before Col. Gaddafi seized power in September 1969, Mr. Keiter left Libya. As he had pre- dicted, the Eastern province (Cyrenaican) tribes did not rise up to protect King Idris, who went into exile in Egypt. After three years in the Office of Southern African Affairs in Washing- ton, Mr. Keiter was assigned to Burundi as deputy chief of mission. He arrived shortly after a massacre of the majority, but less powerful, Hutu by Tutsis. Fol- lowing the massacre, the United States provided food aid in Burundi, particu- larly for mother/child clinics. Catholic Relief Services, responsible for distribution of the food aid, sent nurse Dolores Deveau to Burundi to visit the clinics and make sure the food was being used appropriately. She and Mr. Keiter married in April 1975. That year, he was assigned to the State Department’s Office of Aviation. From 1977 to 1981 he was the U.S. civil aviation attaché in London. After a year at what was then the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, he returned to the Office of Aviation, becoming chief of the Aviation Negotia- tions Division. He headed several nego- tiation teams, including one to Moscow that reestablished direct flights between the United States and the Soviet Union. In 1986 Mr. Keiter retired from the Foreign Service and joined Kurth and Co., an aviation consulting company that focused on economic issues. While the company tackled many issues, its primary focus was helping U.S. airports attract more air service. Mr. Keiter retired from Kurth and Co. in 1999, and the couple moved to Buck- ingham’s Choice retirement community near Frederick, Md., in 2000. There Mr. Keiter was active in the residents’ association for 14 years. He was also active in the Maryland Continuing Care Residents Association. An avid player of bridge and tennis, Mr. Keiter won trophies in both. He loved to sing. His children remember that he sang them a song every night at bedtime when they were small, and he resumed singing in barbershop quartets and other groups in retirement. In addition to his wife, Dolores, Mr. Keiter leaves three children, Deborah Keiter Moore (and husband Chris), Timothy S. Keiter (and wife Kay) and Christopher F. Keiter (and wife Betsy), all of Maine; seven grandchildren; one great-grandson; sisters Margaret Wales, Mary McCarty and Miriam Solloway (and husband Fred); and many nieces and nephews. n Richard Chris Lundberg , 74, a retired Foreign Service officer, died on Jan. 9 in Vienna, Va. Born on Oct. 12, 1945, Mr. Lundberg graduated from Queens College in New York with a bachelor’s degree in history and a master’s degree in education. He became a junior high and middle school teacher in New York City in 1968. After nine years, his desire to help make a difference in the world, plus his love of travel and languages, drove him to change careers. He joined the U.S. Foreign Service with the United States Information Agency and, later, the Department of State. Mr. Lundberg’s overseas career took him to five countries. He began as a junior officer in Warsaw in 1978 and next served as the branch public affairs officer in Poznan. For a history major, Poznan was a memorable assignment because it encompassed the time of traditional communist rule, the rise of Solidarity, the threat of Soviet invasion and the imposition of martial law. His next assignments were also excit- ing and challenging in their own way.