The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2020

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JULY-AUGUST 2020 95 tural exchanges with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, Mr. Richmond established the Fulbright program in Poland in 1959. He negotiated 14 intergovernmental agreements with the Soviet Union and the countries of East- ern Europe on exchanges in education, culture, science and technology. For his work in Poland, Mr. Rich- mond was awarded the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland. After a distinguished career as a cultural officer helping people of other countries to understand America and its people, Mr. Richmond wrote 11 books to help Americans going abroad for work or study to better understand the culture and people of other countries. His published works include: From Nyet to Da: Understanding the New Rus- sia (1992); From Da to Yes: Understand- ing the East Europeans (1995); U.S.- Soviet Cultural Exchanges, 1958-1986: Who Wins? (1987); Cultural Exchange and the Cold War: Raising the Iron Curtain , a 2003 study of how exchanges helped to end the Cold War; Practicing Public Diplomacy: A Cold War Odyssey (2008); and, with wife Phyllis Gestrin, Into Africa: A Guide to Sub-Saharan Culture and Diversity (2009). Several of his books have been pub- lished in Chinese- and Korean-language editions; his From Nyet to Da has been published in four editions and sold more than 35,000 copies. He was also a frequent contributor to The Foreign Service Journal . Mr. Richmond’s first marriage to Pamela Cheatham Richmond ended in divorce. He is survived by his wife, Phyllis Gestrin, of Chevy Chase, Md.; a child, Hania, of Naperville, Ill.; and a grand- child, Pierre David Hanlet. n Edith “Edie” Sabetay Wilcox , 69, the wife of retired Foreign Service spe- cialist George Wilcox, died peacefully, surrounded by her family, on Dec. 19, 2019, after a six-and-a-half-year fight against metastatic breast cancer. Edith Sabetay, a native Uruguayan, married Mr. Wilcox in Montevideo in August 1968. Their family traveled the world, visiting more than 100 countries and most U.S. states during the couple’s long life together. Besides raising three children, Ms. Wilcox was involved in many activities, both paid and unpaid, throughout her life. In Uruguay, she worked as a tele- phone receptionist in a large medical center, later attending medical school at the national university. She worked and taught in the Boulder Valley Schools in Colorado, at the University of Colorado–Boulder, at the Peace Corps training center in Escondido, Calif., and at a private bilingual school in Corpus Christi, Texas. In San Antonio, she was one of the first employees at the new SIN TV network (now Univision), where she computerized the local station’s com- mercial programming. In Singapore, she worked at the Embassy of Argentina as a part-time secretary to the ambassador and as acting cultural attaché. In South Africa in the early 1990s, Ms. Wilcox was the student adviser at U.S. Embassy Pretoria. As president of the International American Women’s Association there, she worked with the wife of then president F.W. de Klerk and U.S. Ambassador Bill Swing in various endeavors to bring an end to apartheid. In Uzbekistan, she served as the community liaison office coordinator and escorted then First Lady Hillary Clinton to various events during her If you would like us to include an obituary in In Memory, please send text to journal@ afsa.org . Be sure to include the date, place and cause of death, as well as details of the individual’s Foreign Service career. Please place the name of the AFSA member to be memorialized in the subject line of your email. November 1997 visit. In Brazil, as CLO at the U.S. consulate in São Paulo, she organized many programs, one of which was the 1999 visit of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. In the Washington, D.C., area, Ms. Wilcox served as a case worker at the Alexandria-Arlington Center for the Homeless and, later, as coordinator for the American Foreign Service Associa- tion’s Elderhostel programs. At her final two posts overseas, Bahrain and Thai- land, she worked as a freelance writer for various publications. When Mr. Wilcox retired in 2007, the couple settled in Tucson, Ariz., where Ms. Wilcox continued her writing and other activities. Ms. Wilcox is survived by her hus- band of 51 years, George; three children and their spouses, Carolynne (Ian) of Seattle, Wash., Sarah Katz-Wilcox (Greg) of Las Vegas, Nev., and David (Margie) of Sacramento, Calif.; two granddaugh- ters, Brooke and Rachel Katz; and a sister, Marta Sabetay Nathan, and her family of Montevideo. According to her last wishes, those who want to honor Ms. Wilcox should consider donating to a local homeless shelter or a local food bank. n