The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2023

92 JULY-AUGUST 2023 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL grandchildren Gavyn, Maya, William, and Elliot; brother Tom Louton; and sister-in-law Barbara Putz. n JayThomas Smith, 69, a retired Senior Foreign Service officer, passed away at his residence in Bloomington, Ind., on April 15, 2023. He was born to Jack and Virginia Smith of Oakland City, Ind., on Aug. 26, 1953. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1975, and a year later he married Jacqueline, whom he had met in France while on a study abroad semester there. Mr. Smith followed his passion for international affairs and joined the Department of State as a Foreign Service consular officer in 1980. His overseas assignments included Malawi, Indonesia, France, Zaire, the Philippines, Jamaica, Romania, Haiti (twice), and Senegal. He spoke French, Romanian, Lingala, and Indonesian. In more than 30 years of public ser- vice, he traveled to nearly every country in Africa and lived all over the world alongside his loving wife. Mr. Smith was also a proud graduate of the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., in 1995. Retiring with the rank of Minister Counselor in the Senior Foreign Service in 2014, Mr. Smith was known for his pas- sion for helping others, honoring the ide- als of the country he loved to serve, and motivating countless public servants in the pursuit of American ideals overseas and in the United States. His brother, Jack, and sisters, Janet and Joyce, remember him for his love of baseball, fierce devotion to his family, and dedication to his country. Mr. Smith loved vintage cars, crossword puzzles, and learning. Never one to stay idle, he devoted much of his time to following politics, world events, and the happenings of his family. He will always be remembered for his dedication to those he loved. Mr. Smith is survived by his wife of 46 years, Jacqueline Smith; their five children: Jeffrey Smith (an Army colonel), Veronique Guillermety (a Foreign Service officer), Juliette Dickens, Francis Smith, and Emma Smith; and four grandchildren: Alexandrine, Damien, Margaux, and Isaac, who was born shortly after his passing. n Perry Jesse Stieglitz, 102, a retired Foreign Service officer with the U.S. Infor- mation Agency, died on Jan. 25, 2023. Mr. Stieglitz was born on April 18, 1920, in Yonkers, N.Y., to Abraham Charles and Goldie (Klein) Stieglitz. In 1941 he received a B.A. degree from New York University and did postgradu- ate work at bothHarvard and University of Lausanne, Switzerland. He served as a lieu- tenant in the U.S. Navy from1942 to 1946. From 1956 to 1959, he worked as both a lecturer at Hunter College in New York City and an English teacher at Hunter High School. He was a Fulbright grantee in Laos from 1959 to 1960, which led to his joining USIA. After a four-month assign- ment to set up four posts in Finland at which Americans would teach English, he was posted to Savannakhet in Laos in 1961. A year later he was called back to Vientiane as the information officer. Mr. Stieglitz served as assistant cul- tural attaché in Paris from 1963 to 1967 and as cultural attaché in Vientiane from 1967 to 1968. He then served as American consul in Marseille (1968-1970), and as cultural attaché in Bangkok (1973-1976) and in Brussels (1976-1980). Following retirement from the Foreign Service in 1980, he was the Washing- ton bureau chief for the Bangkok Post of Thailand from 1984 to 1985 and the American representative of theThomson Foundation of England from 1986 to 1988. Beginning in 1988, he was director of the Gibraltar Information Bureau in Washington, D.C. Mr. Stieglitz received a meritorious award from the U.S. Information Agency in 1967. He was a member of the Cercle Royal Gaulois de Bruxelles, DACOR, and the University Club of Washington. n Paul J. Steere, 82, a retired Foreign Service officer, died on March 7, 2023, of natural causes in Semiahmoo, Blaine, Wash., with his wife by his side. Mr. Steere was born in Grants Pass, Ore., to Jason and Emily (Smith) Steere, the youngest of three children. He was raised in a loving Christian environment, where his father was a minister and missionary, and his brothers continued along that path. His love of books and swimming started at an early age. At the age of 17, Mr. Steere enrolled in the Army, where he was an intelligence analyst from 1958 to 1967. He served in Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, and three times in Vietnam (1961, 1963-1965, and 1966) with security, intelligence, psychological, and covert operations units. He was honorably discharged with a 10 percent disability in 1967. Awards included Vietnam Service and Army Commendation Medals. Mr. Steere met his wife, Muoi “Ying” Truong, in Vietnam, and they married in 1963. Their oldest son was born in Saigon. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Steere took advantage of the GI Bill and received a bachelor’s degree in East Asian studies and political science and master’s degree in library science at the University of Washington in Seattle, where his second son was born. Mr. Steere’s passion for books and travel led him to Aschaffenburg, Ger-