The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2006

A daughter, Ann Tienken, died in 1971. Amb. Tienken is survived by his wife of nearly 60 years, Jean R. Tien- ken of Arlington, Va.; three daughters, Judy Nelson of University Place, Wash., Nancy Milburn of Falls Church, Va., and Carol Tienken of Boston, Mass.; four grandchildren, Angela, Aaron, Matthew and Katha- rine; two great-grandchildren, Trey- phosa Jean and Anthony, Jr.; and a nephew, Robert Woods Tienken. Memorial donations may be sent to Capital Hospice (www.capitalhospice. org). Lee Hall Valeriani , 80, one of the pioneering female network corre- spondents and a member of the Foreign Service with the Voice of America, died of cancer on March 23 at her home in Washington, D.C. Known professionally as Lee Hall, she was born in Oklahoma and spent her infancy in Japan, where her father, an engineer, was working on a project. She received her bachelor’s degree in journalism in 1947 at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. There she met Wilson Hall. When he trans- ferred to Yale University, they married in New Haven, Conn. She began working for a local radio station and participated in programming chil- dren’s shows in the early days of TV. Lee Hall was hired by NBC in the early 1950s as a foreign correspon- dent. Prior to that, when her husband was recalled to military service and stationed in Japan, she did broadcasts for Armed Forces Radio on the Korean War. By 1953, they were both working for NBC and based in Cairo, covering the Middle East. She reported on the 1952 military take- over of the Egyptian government and the abdication of King Farouk. She also filed audio reports on the 1956 Suez Canal crisis. In Jordan, Lee Hall broke the news of King Hussein’s surviving an assassination attempt. When Lee and Wilson Hall returned to New York in 1957, she served as United Nations correspondent. In 1959 the Halls were assigned to cover South America. They estab- lished a bureau in Rio de Janeiro and covered the continent, keeping a close eye on Cuba, where Fidel Castro had overthrown the Batista regime in January. Later in 1960, she left South America temporarily to join in NBC’s coverage of the national presidential nominating conventions. She was the lone woman on a panel of NBC corre- spondents that included Chet Huntley, David Brinkley and others, who re- sponded to letters from listeners. She then returned to South America. But by the end of 1961 Lee and Wilson Hall were back in New York, assigned to NBC-TV and divorced. At this time, Ms. Hall moved to Washington to begin what would be a 28-year career at VOA. There she had reporting assignments in addition to supervising worldwide English pro- grams. She covered the Republican and Democratic conventions in 1964 and 1968. In 1966, she was a member of the press corps accompanying President Johnson on his trip to Asia and the Pacific. In 1965, Ms. Hall married Richard Valeriani, who was NBC’s diplomatic correspondent, and they traveled abroad frequently. She was promot- ed to deputy chief of the VOA’s Worldwide English Division and also was VOA’s White House corre- spondent. She was unfailingly help- ful to her staff, especially newcom- ers, and they admired her as a boss and as a person. Her marriage to Valeriani ended in divorce in 1979, and she moved to Los Angeles as chief of VOA’s West Coast Bureau. In Los Angeles she took over a large staff of correspon- dents and technicians, and arranged news coverage of events from Holly- wood to outer space throughout the western states. On her retirement in October 1990, Ms. Hall moved back to Washington, D.C., and temporarily worked part-time for two British newspapers. She served a term as president of the D.C. Public Library’s Palisades Branch, and in 1992 became active in the Institute for Learning in Retirement. There she not only took courses, but also served as a member of the board of directors and on a number of committees. Throughout her life, friends recall, Lee Hall was known as an ele- gant and modest woman who rarely discussed her remarkable career. Julius Goodman, former president of NBC, remembers Ms. Hall as “a good reporter, personable and ener- getic.” As he told the Washington Post , “She was tenacious and was interested in everything; just one of those women with a kind of atmos- phere about her, so you knew when you entered a room that you wanted to talk to her.” Ms. Hall has no immediate survivors. Leonard F. Willems , 68, a retired FSO, died in Hamilton, Ontario, on April 30, following a long illness. A graduate of Brown University, Mr. Willems grew up in a military fam- ily. His father, John Willems, was a general officer who served in the peacetime army of the 1930s and in World War II. One of Mr. Willems’ proud possessions was a large black- and-white photo of his father’s battal- ion drawn up in formation with sol- diers and equipment. A self-pro- claimed “military brat,” Mr. Willems J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 6 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 61 I N M E M O R Y