The Foreign Service Journal, September 2019

76 SEPTEMBER 2019 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Mr. Curran is survived by his wife, Marcia; two daughters, Sara and Diana, and sons-in-law, Ralph and Laris; and four grandchildren: Ingrid, Augustus, Noah and Claire. n Daniel del Castillo, 50, an active-duty Foreign Service officer, died suddenly in Washington, D.C., on May 8 after a short illness. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Mr. del Castillo was a print journalist for The Chronicle of Higher Education , cov- ering the region from Timbuktu to Kabul from a base in Rome. Raised in Minnesota, he earned a bachelor’s degree in classics from the University of Minnesota and a master’s degree in Middle Eastern history from the American University of Beirut. Mr. del Castillo joined the State Department in 2008 after having spent time as a fellow at Embassy Baghdad. He served in Kathmandu and Cairo, as a political adviser to the U.S. Africa Command in Stuttgart, and at the National Security Council before joining the State Department’s Executive Sec- retariat Staff (“the Line”) in the summer of 2017. During his tenure there, Mr. del Castillo advanced travel by the Secretary of State to Manila, Beijing, Doha, Cairo, Mexico City, Brasilia, Paris and Kansas, among other places. His coworkers remember him for his sincere regard for colleagues and their well-being, his insightful ques- tions about policy and State’s role in the world, his sartorial splendor and wit, and his true love of travel—especially to the far-flung places on his bucket list. Mr. del Castillo is survived by his wife, Renae Ask; his mother, Marcia del Castillo; two older sisters, Deborah and Michele del Castillo; nieces Isabella and Cezanne; nephews Giovanni and Ales- sandro; and two great-nephews, Hayden and Hudson. To share notes and photos with the family, please send to: The del Castillo Family, 914 Gorman Ave., St. Paul MN 55118, or to renaeask@gmail.com. n John Gunther Dean, 93, a retired Foreign Service officer and five-time ambassador, died on June 6 at his home in Paris. Born Gunther Dienstfertig in Bre- slau, Germany (now the Polish city of Wrocław), on Feb. 24, 1926, Mr. Dean fled with his family from Nazi Germany in 1938, settling in Kansas City and changing their last name to Dean. Mr. Dean studied government and international relations at Harvard University before enlisting in the U.S. Army. He married Martine Duphenieux in 1952. During a Foreign Service career that began in 1956 and ended with his retire- ment in 1989, Mr. Dean served as U.S. ambassador to Cambodia, Denmark, Lebanon, Thailand and India. Mr. Dean was perhaps best known for his 1974-1975 tour as the ambassador to Cambodia. He oversaw the evacuation of the U.S. embassy in Phnom Penh after the capital fell to the Khmer Rouge. Mr. Dean worked desperately to secure passage out of Phnom Penh for Cambodian officials and others who had fought against the communist insurgents even after the United States ended mili- tary support for the embattled Cambo- dian government. “We’d accepted responsibility for Cambodia and then walked out without fulfilling our promise,” Mr. Dean said in a 2015 interview. “That’s the worst thing a country can do. And I cried, because I knew what was going to happen.” Mr. Dean was portrayed by Ira Wheeler in the 1984 film The Killing Fields , about the fall of Phnom Penh. Shortly after leaving Cambodia, Mr. Dean received a letter from President Ger- ald Ford, who said that Mr. Dean had been “given one of the most difficult assign- ments in the history of the Foreign Service and carried it out with distinction.” After retirement in 1989, Mr. Dean served on corporate and academic boards in the United States, Europe and Asia. A fan of classical music, he helped found the Verbier Festival, an annual summer music festival in Switzerland. Mr. Dean is survived by his wife, Martine; three children, Catharine Curtis of Cajarc, France, Paul Dean of Geneva, Switzerland, and Joseph Dean of Sebas- topol, Calif.; and seven grandchildren. n Pasquale “Pat” DiTanna, 87, a retired Foreign Service officer, died on July 18 at his residence in Fairfax, Va., after fighting cancer for five years. Mr. DiTanna was a first-generation Italian American born in Burlington, N.J. A 1953 graduate of The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, he joined the U.S. Army and served one year in Korea. During a 32-year career as a Foreign Service officer with the State Depart- ment, Mr. DiTanna served in the Philippines, Turkey, Colombia, Panama, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Chile, Switzer- land and Pakistan. He also traveled on assignment for the Office of Foreign Building Operations to the Soviet Union, El Salvador, Spain, Holland, Portugal, Honduras, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Thailand, Austra- lia, China and Japan. In 1972 he received a Meritorious Honor Award. Mr. DiTanna met his wife, Janet, in Manila, and they were married there in