The Foreign Service Journal, September 2011

70 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 1 his sleep on June 27 in Riga, where he was serving as the deputy chief of mis- sion. Mr. Rogers joined the Department of State in 1985 and served in Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United King- dom, Latvia, Belgium and Afghanistan. There, as director for provincial re- construction and local governance in Kabul, he supervised personnel at 25 locations around Afghanistan. Pre- viously, he also served as the deputy political adviser at the U.S. Mission to NATO (2003-2006) and as politi- cal-economic chief in Riga (2000- 2003). “Bruce loved Latvia passionately, and he loved working on U.S.-Latvian relations,” U.S. Ambassador to Latvia Judith Garber said in a statement from the embassy. During the six years he spent in the country, he played a major role in assisting Latvia in its accession to NATO and the European Union and in strengthening economic ties be- tween the U.S. and Latvia. In 1991, Mr. Rogers was part of the team that reopened Embassy Kuwait at the end of the first Persian Gulf War. His domestic assignments included two tours in State’s Bureau of Eco- nomic and Business Affairs, and stints as an instructor in the Orientation Di- vision at the Foreign Service Institute and as a regional affairs officer in the Office of Counterterrorism. In the lat- ter capacity, he led two assessment teams to East Africa in the wake of the August 1998 bombing of the U.S. em- bassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Mr. Rogers received four State De- partment Superior Honor Awards and two Meritorious Honor Awards. He earned a B.A. in history and interna- tional relations from San Francisco State University and, in 2007, received a master’s degree with highest distinc- tion in national security and strategic studies from the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. Mr. Rogers leaves behind his wife, Gale Rogers, a retired FSO, and two children. Peter Sebastian , 84, a retired FSO and former ambassador, died peace- fully at home in Santa Fe, N.M., on March 22. Mr. Sebastian was born in Berlin in 1926 and educated in France and Italy before coming to the U.S., where he became a citizen in 1944. He served in the U.S. Army from 1944 to 1946. After military service, Mr. Sebastian pursued studies at Roosevelt Univer- sity, the University d’Aix in Marseilles, the University of Chicago, and the New School for Social Research. He married the former Harvel Huddle- ston in 1951. In 1957 he joined the U.S. Foreign Service and, together with his family, began a series of diplomatic assign- ments that included the Central African Republic, France, Morocco and Ethiopia. His longest postings were in Mo- rocco, where Mr. Sebastian served as political officer and consul general and, later, as deputy chief of mission and chargé d’affaires. InWashington, D.C., he served as a specialist in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, as deputy executive sec- retary in the Office of the Secretary of State, and as Algerian desk officer and, later, director of North African affairs. He attended the National War College and the State Department’s Senior Seminar. In 1984 he was appointed ambassa- dor to Tunisia, where he served until 1987, when he retired. After moving to Santa Fe in 1988, Ambassador Sebastian remained active as a writer, frequent speaker and board member of the Council of Interna- tional Relations. Mr. Sebastian is survived by his wife, Harvel, of Santa Fe; his son, Christopher, of Bethesda, Md.; and a granddaughter, Katarina, of Apple Dutch Village, near Frankfurt, Ger- many. Victor Henry Skiles , 93, a re- tired Foreign Service officer, died on Jan. 20 at Fairfax Hospital in Fairfax, Va. Mr. Skiles was born in Dayton, Idaho, on Oct. 15, 1917. He gradu- ated from Burley High School in 1935 and attended the University of Idaho, graduating in 1940. That year he traveled to Washington, D.C., to serve as an intern with the National Institute of Public Affairs and was as- signed to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In 1942, Mr. Skiles enlisted in the Navy and was stationed as an officer in the Pacific theater. At the end of World War II, he was asked to join the Quadripartite Control Council in Berlin, assisting war refugees and dis- placed persons and continued that work until he joined the Department of State in Greece in 1948. Following that assignment, he re- turned to Washington in 1950. He worked at the State Department on Greece, Turkey and Iran and, later, on Middle Eastern foreign assis- tance. In 1958, Mr. Skiles was assigned to Israel as the deputy director for I N M E M O R Y