74 JULY-AUGUST 2026 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL identification and selection of mental health professionals schooled in attributes she deemed essential to being able to respond to the needs of employees serving a worldwide community. It now has psychiatrists in posts in Europe, Asia, and South America. Upon retirement in 2010, Dr. Roberts received the U.S. Senior Foreign Service Presidential Award for decades of outstanding service as director of the mental health program. She was a true pioneer in mental health services for members of the Foreign Service and their families at embassies around the world. Family members recall that Dr. Roberts often spoke with pride of the many mental health professionals she hired and with whom she maintained a relationship. The family is sincerely grateful for the calls received from colleagues during the final weeks of her life. To hear stories of her time and work in the Foreign Service was most comforting. Dr. Roberts was preceded in death by her parents, Dr. S. Oliver and Marion Roberts. She is survived by her daughter from a former marriage, Marion Velma Ashley (and spouse, Kevin Patrick Quinn); grandchildren, Aoife Ashley Quinn and Authur Ashley Quinn; nephew, Oliver R. Stone; sisters, Dr. Barbara Roberts and Dr. Kay Roberts; and a host of other relatives and friends. n William A. Root, 102, a retired Foreign Service officer, died on February 10, 2026, in East Lansing, Mich. Mr. Root was born on September 20, 1923, in Hingham, Mass. He graduated from Colorado College in 1943 and then joined the U.S. Navy as a radar officer. He served in the Navy until 1946, when he returned to the U.S. In 1948 Mr. Root earned an MA in international affairs and a Russian Institute certificate at Columbia University. He met his wife of 72 years, Connie, in Chicago where both studied at Northwestern, he in midshipman school at the Chicago campus and she in journalism at the Evanston campus. They married in 1945 and had four children. Before joining the State Department in 1950, Mr. Root served in the International Activities Branch of the Bureau of the Budget. He served overseas in Bonn (1952– 1955), Copenhagen (1959–1963), Saigon (1969–1971), and West Berlin (1971–1974). Between foreign tours, Mr. Root attended the Industrial College of the Armed Forces (1963–1964) and served in State’s Office of East-West Trade, where he dealt with export controls (1964–1969). After Berlin, he was assigned to the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs (1974– 1976) and then returned to the Office of East-West Trade (1976–1980). After resigning in 1983, Mr. Root continued to consult and make public comments regarding regulatory changes in export controls until age 101. Friends and family members remember him for his lifelong commitment to helping create a more peaceful world for all citizens. Mr. Root was predeceased by his wife, Connie, in 2017. He is survived by his children, Carl Root, Margaret Bruck, John Root, and Christine Root; seven grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren. n Lionel Alexander Rosenblatt, 82, a retired Foreign Service officer and champion for refugees in Southeast Asia and, later, around the world, died on April 11, 2026, after a lengthy fight against cancer. Born on December 10, 1943, in New York City to Carol (née Blumenthal) and David B. Rosenblatt, a nuclear scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Mr. Rosenblatt graduated from Bellport High School in Long Island in 1961. He graduated from Harvard College in 1965 and attended Stanford Law School for one year before entering the U.S. Foreign Service in 1966. Mr. Rosenblatt’s first post was Sri Lanka, where he met his future wife, Ann Grosvenor. The couple married in 1971. In 1967, after six months in Sri Lanka, he volunteered for an assignment in Vietnam and then worked with the Vietnam Special Studies Group at the State Department. During that assignment, he made several return visits to the country. After his early and intense experience in Vietnam, Mr. Rosenblatt took a leave of absence in the early 1970s to decide whether diplomacy was the right career. He worked as a reporter at the Bangor Daily News in Maine, but returned to the State Department in 1973 as a special assistant to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and then Deputy Secretary of State Robert S. Ingersoll, becoming more involved in Vietnam. While working for Ingersoll in March 1975, Mr. Rosenblatt sensed that South Vietnam’s days were numbered. He helped organize a group of mid-level U.S. diplomats to meet daily to discuss the latest developments and push for an evacuation plan not only for Americans, but also for the thousands of Vietnamese who had worked with the U.S. over the years. (For details, see retired FSO Parker Borg’s April 2015 account in the FSJ, at https://bit.ly/ Borg-FSJ.) Determining that the State Department was not working at the speed necessary, he and a colleague, Craig Johnstone, flew surreptitiously to Vietnam. There, without
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