The Foreign Service Journal, September 2021

74 SEPTEMBER 2021 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL n Samuel Karp , 100, a retired For- eign Service officer, died at his home in Walnut Creek, Calif., on June 28. Mr. Karp was born in Philadelphia and graduated from public school in 1939. He worked for a short time with the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps in a civilian capac- ity. In 1942 he enlisted in the U.S. Army and was assigned to the 179th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division, seeing military service in North Africa and Italy. In September 1945, immediately fol- lowing his honorable discharge from the Army, Mr. Karp joined the Foreign Service while in Italy and was assigned as a clerk to the political adviser’s office at Fifth Army Headquarters in Caserta. This was followed by assignments in the consulate general in Salonika and then the embassy in Athens as a code clerk. In Athens, Mr. Karp met his future wife, Rachel Keil, also a member of the Foreign Service. Ms. Keil had previously served with the U.S. Auxiliary Army Corps. Foreign Service regulations at the time required Ms. Keil to resign from the For- eign Service when she married. They wed in the United States on July 5, 1949. The Karps’ first assignments were Budapest and then London, where their son Daniel was born. Their daughter Susan Diane was born while they were in Washington, D.C., and Larry Samuel was born during their next post in Montreal, where Mr. Karp was appointed vice con- sul. Marylou was born four years later in Jamaica. Subsequently, the family served in Ciudad Juarez, La Paz, Managua, Hong Kong, Mexico City, London and Washing- ton, D.C. After their retirement in 1978, the Karps lived briefly in Alexandria, Va., and then spent the next 27 years in San Mar- cos, Calif. They moved to Walnut Creek in 2005. Ms. Karp died in 2017. Mr. Karp is survived by four children, nine grandchildren and five great-grand- children. n Penelope “Penne” Babcock Laingen , 89, wife of the late Ambassador Bruce Laingen, died peacefully at her son’s home in Marshall, Va., on April 3. Ms. Babcock was born in Ann Arbor, Mich., the daughter of Frederick and Margaret Babcock. The family moved to Chevy Chase, Md., where she attended Bethesda Chevy Chase High School before graduating with a degree in English fromThe George Washington University. While at GWU, she was active in the Pi Beta Phi sorority. She was a case file typist for the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover before marrying FSO Bruce Laingen at All Saints Church in Chevy Chase in 1957. She spent the next 30 years supporting him in his For- eign Service career. Together, they served overseas in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Malta, settling in Bethesda during their stateside assignments. While on these foreign tours, Ms. Lain- gen created and supported numerous cultural exchange programs and efforts to empower and train women. She was also an outspoken advocate for pay and recog- nition for Foreign Service spouses as they accompany their partners overseas. In 1979 her husband was sent unac- companied to be chargé d’affaires in Iran, where, in November of that year, he was taken hostage along with 51 other staff and held for 444 days. During that national crisis, Ms. Laingen led the other families in their resolute determination to bring their loved ones home. She hung a bright yellow ribbon around the large oak tree at their home in Bethesda after remembering the song “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree,” made popular by Tony Orlando. Department as a Foreign Service officer. He was sent back to Penn for further Arabic study before being assigned in 1946 to Beirut, his first overseas post and, in 1971, his last. Mr. Jones also served in Ethiopia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Oman and Syria. He spent a year at the U.S. Naval War College, also earning his master’s degree fromThe George Washington University. Mr. Jones’ final assignment was as director of the Office of Research and Intelligence for the Near East and South Asia. After retiring in 1976, Mr. Jones moved to Chapel Hill, N.C., in 1977. He was active in the Rotary Club for several decades, played tennis until he was 92 and was a lifelong birder, arborist and gardener. Most of his retirement years were spent writing (his articles were published both locally and nationally), speaking and teaching (e.g., at the Triangle Insti- tute for Security Studies), drawing on his direct experience in the Middle East. He published two books, Divide and Perish: The Geopolitics of the Middle East (2011) and The Wars of the Middle Eastern Suc- cession: 1914-2016 (2018) and was work- ing on a third. Mr. Jones was preceded in death by his wife, Elizabeth “Betty” Swann Jones; his parents, Ernest F. and Florence (née Carll) Jones; and his brother, Sherwood Jones. He is survived by his three children, Dr. Curtis Thompson Jones (Jan), Dr. Ste- ven Swann Jones (Rosalyn) and Dr. Leslie Sargent Jones (Jeffrey); five grandchil- dren, Leila Dean, Geoffrey Jones, Trent Jones, Tyler Jones and Destry Jones; three great-grandchildren, Sophia Dean, Gordon Dean and Dillon Jones; his sister, Faith Middleton; and the beloved partner of his last years, Eleanor Gates Kinnaird.