The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2008

78 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 8 I N M EMORY Lucius Durham Battle , 89, a retired FSO, former ambassador and assistant secretary of State and a for- mer president of AFSA, died on May 13 at his home in Washington, D.C. Born and raised in Dawson, Ga., and Bradenton, Fla., Mr. Battle re- ceived his undergraduate and law de- grees from the University of Florida in 1939 and 1946 respectively. He served in the Navy in the Pacific the- ater during World War II. Mr. Battle joined the State Depart- ment in 1946, first serving on the Canada desk. He helped manage the Marshall Plan until 1949, when a chance encounter with Secretary of State Dean Acheson led to his ap- pointment as the Secretary’s special assistant. Acheson called Battle his “indispensable aide,” famously noting that a successful diplomat needs “an assistant with nerves of steel, a sense of purpose, and a Southern accent.” In 1953, Mr. Battle was posted to Copenhagen. He then moved to NATO headquarters in Paris for a year before returning to the U.S. in 1956 to work with the Rockefeller family as vice president of Colonial Williamsburg. In 1961, he returned to State as executive director and executive assistant to Secretary of State Dean Rusk. Among many man- agement reforms, he established the State Department Operations Center. From 1962 to 1984, he served as assistant secretary of State for educa- tion and culture, coordinating cultural events in Washington and working with Senator J. William Fulbright on the Fulbright Scholars program. President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Mr. Battle as U.S. ambas- sador to Egypt in 1964. In Cairo, he faced a number of challenges, includ- ing an attack on the embassy library, which was burned to the ground by a group of African students protesting American policies. He arranged the 1966 visit to the U.S. of Anwar Sadat, then an aide to President Gamal Abdel Nasser. He was effective and well-regarded by his Egyptian coun- terparts, despite the growing tensions between the two countries. Amb. Battle was appointed assis- tant secretary of State for the Near East and North Africa in March 1967, weeks before the outbreak of the Arab-Israeli Six Day War. He re- signed from the Foreign Service in 1968 to become vice president of Com- munications Satellite Corporation. He later turned down two ambas- sadorial appointments, one to Viet- nam during the Johnson administra- tion and one to Iran in 1977. From 1973 to 1975, Amb. Battle served as president of the Middle East Institute, returning to Comsat in 1980. He later was president of the Middle East Institute from 1986 to 1990, when he retired. Amb. Battle was awarded the Foreign Service Cup in 1984. He was a member of both Diplomats and Consular Officers, Retired, and the American Foreign Service Associa- tion, serving as the president of the latter in 1963. As president of the Bacon House Foundation, he facilitated its merger with the DACOR Education and Welfare Foundation to create the DACOR Bacon House Foundation in 1986. He served as vice president of DACOR and the Foundation, and was an honorary governor and trustee until his death. He also served on the boards of a number of institutions, including as a trustee of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Washing- ton Gallery of Modern Art, the George C. Marshall Foundation and the American University in Cairo. He was the first chairman of the Johns Hop- kins Foreign Policy Institute. Amb. Battle’s wife of 55 years, Betty Davis Battle, whom he married in 1949, died in 2004. He is survived by four children, Lynne Battle of Bethesda, Md., John Battle of Concord, Mass., Laura Bat- tle of Rhinebeck, N.Y., and Thomas Battle of Belmont, Mass.; and eight grandchildren.