The Foreign Service Journal, September 2013

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER 2013 89 Mr. Levine was in the first graduating class in 1941 of the Bronx High School of Science in New York. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Latin Ameri- can studies from Mexico City College (now the University of the Americas in Puebla, Mexico). During World War II he was a radar technician in the U.S. Marine Corps. Before joining USIA, Mr. Levine worked as a freelance writer, a staffer at People Today and Pageant magazines, a reporter in the Paris bureau of the International News Service, and an editor of an English-language daily in Mexico City. In 1955 he joined USIA as a writer and, later, editor at the Voice of Amer- ica. In 1960 he joined the USIA Foreign Service and was posted to Geneva. He subsequently served in Paris, where he was deputy public affairs officer and, later, PAO for the American delegation to the Organization for European Coop- eration and Development. Assignments to Saigon and Phnom Penh, where he was also PAO, followed. Mr. Levine retired from the Foreign Service in 1980, and moved to the Trea- sury Department, where he served as a press officer. He also edited the quar- terly USIA Alumni News from January 1989 to September 2004. Mr. Levine is survived by his wife, the former Nan Pullan, of Pleasantville, N.J., and three sons, David, Joshua and Justin. n Robert Lee Pugh, 81, a retired FSO and former ambassador, died on Jan. 28 in Columbus, Miss., after coura- geously battling Parkinson’s disease. Robert Lee Pugh was born in Find- ley, Pa., on Oct. 27, 1931. He grew up in California and Tacoma, Wash., and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Russian and Asian studies from the University of Washington in 1954. He then joined the United States Marine Corps, serving until 1961 and rising to the rank of captain. He served as infantry platoon leader, company executive officer, company commander, division order-of-battle officer and divi- sion combat intelligence officer. Mr. Pugh joined the Foreign Service at the Department of State in 1961, and began his career as an international economist in the Bureau of Economic Affairs from 1961 to 1963. After attend- ing the Turkish Language School (1963-1964), he was assigned to Ankara as the political-military officer until 1967, when he was posted to Consulate Isfahan as principal officer. He returned to Washington, D.C., in 1969 and served as the Turkish desk officer in the Bureau of Near East and South Asian Affairs. In 1972 Mr. Pugh was assigned to Athens as the political and military counselor, serving until 1976, when he returned to Washington, D.C., as a legislative management officer with the Bureau of Congressional Affairs. From 1977 until 1979, Mr. Pugh served as the political adviser to the commander-in-chief of U.S. Naval Forces Europe. Next, he was deputy director of the Office of Southern European Affairs from 1979 to 1981, and chief of the Assignments Division from 1981 until 1982. Mr. Pugh was assigned to Beirut as deputy U.S. ambassador in 1982. There he managed a large and diverse U.S. mission through the ongoing crisis of the Israeli occupation and renewed Lebanese civil war, and the seizure of U.S. citizens as hostages. During the catastrophic 1983 bomb- ings of the embassy and Marine bar- racks in Beirut, Mr. Pugh directed the temporary relocation of the embassy