The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2020

94 JULY-AUGUST 2020 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL retirement, Mr. Nelson and his wife traveled extensively. They moved to the Oaknoll Retirement Residence in 2011. Mr. Nelson is survived by his wife, Margaret; their sons, Andrew (Teresa), Jeffrey and Brian (Claudia); and by an older brother, Win. Mr. Nelson deeded his body to the University of Iowa Col- lege of Medicine. n Douglas Kai Rasmussen , 70, a retired Foreign Service officer who spe- cialized in Southeast Asia, died on May 6 in Potomac, Md. Mr. Rasmussen was born on March 8, 1950, in El Paso, Texas, to Martha and James Rasmussen. He graduated from Occidental College in 1972 with a bach- elor’s degree in international affairs. His lifelong pacifism and interest in foreign affairs grew during the Vietnam War. At 24 he hitchhiked from California to New York, where he secured work on a commercial freighter to obtain pas- sage to India. While he was in India, Indira Gandhi’s government detonated the country’s first nuclear bomb, precipitating an arms race on the subcontinent. This fueled his desire to work toward nonviolent resolutions to geopolitical issues, and he applied to join the Foreign Service at U.S. Embassy New Delhi in 1974. Mr. Rasmussen joined the Depart- ment of State in 1975 and spent 33 years serving in Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Laos and Washington, D.C. As deputy chief of mission in Rangoon from 1996 to 2000, a period marked by repressive military rule and economic sanctions by the Western world, he served as the principal chan- nel of communication with pro-democ- racy leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi during her house arrest. Throughout his diplomatic career, Mr. Rasmussen was deeply involved in American efforts to stem the drug trade out of Asia. He developed extensive expertise in the “Golden Triangle” region of Burma, Thailand and Laos, a global epicenter of opium production. As the Asia division chief for the Bureau of International Narcotics Mat- ters, Mr. Rasmussen worked closely with the Thai government to help craft a successful multipronged approach to reducing heroin trafficking, including promoting alternative sources of liveli- hood for hilltribe opium poppy farmers. On an earlier assignment to Bangkok as a political officer, he found himself on the receiving end of Thai gunfire during the 1992 “Bloody May” mili- tary crackdown on student protestors against army rule. He also played an important role in the 1980s in implementing American anti-piracy efforts in the region, aimed at suppressing the brutal predation to which Vietnamese boat refugees were frequently subjected while crossing the Gulf of Thailand. A true lover of nature, Mr. Rasmus- sen was happiest outside—gardening, hiking and camping with family and friends. Family members and friends recall that he made everyone around him feel happy and at ease with his kind, gentle and generous nature. Mr. Rasmussen is survived by his wife, Alice; his daughters, Caroline and Anne; a granddaughter, Liana; and brothers Jim and Steve. n Yale Wolf Richmond , 96, a retired Foreign Service officer, died of natural causes on March 22 in Chevy Chase, Md. Born in Boston, Mr. Richmond grad- uated from Boston College in 1943 at age 19, served in the U.S. Army from 1943 to 1946, and received degrees in electrical engineering from Syracuse University (1947) and in East European history and Polish language from Columbia Univer- sity (1957). In 1947 he joined the U.S. military government in Germany as an intern. He joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1949, serving first as a Kreis resident offi- cer and then in several cultural affairs assignments in Germany until 1954. Transferring to the U.S. Information Agency in 1953, Mr. Richmond went on to complete a 31-year diplomatic career, with additional overseas assignments in Laos, Poland, Austria and the Soviet Union. For his service as public affairs officer in Laos from 1954 to 1956, Mr. Rich- mond received the U.S. Information Agency’s Meritorious Service Award. After Polish language training, he was assigned to Warsaw as cultural attaché in 1958. In 1961 he was transferred to Vienna as a special projects officer, returning to the State Department in 1963 as an exchange program supervisor. Following Russian language train- ing, Mr. Richmond became counselor for public affairs in Moscow in 1967, returning to Washington, D.C., in 1970 as USIA’s policy officer for Europe. From 1971 to 1978, Mr. Richmond was deputy director for the Soviet Union and East Europe at the State Depart- ment. He retired in 1980 as deputy assistant director (Europe) at the U.S. Information Agency. After retiring from the Foreign Service, Mr. Richmond was a staff consultant to the Commission on Security and Coop- eration in Europe in the U.S. Congress and served as a senior program officer at the National Endowment for Democracy. A specialist in educational and cul-