The Foreign Service Journal, October 2004

Richard G. Cushing , 87, retired FSO, war correspondent in the Pacific for the Associated Press in World War II and later head of the Voice of America, died at his home in Mill Valley, Calif., on July 23. Mr. Cushing served in Chile, Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela and Kenya in press and cultural relations assign- ments with the U.S. Information Agency. In 1968 and 1969 he was act- ing director of the Voice of America. He retired from the Foreign Service at the end of 1976 and returned with his wife Nancy to their home in Mill Valley. From there he continued his link with VOA as a string correspon- dent for the Bay Area — “to keep my hand in journalism.” For a time he did news reporting for UPI radio. Born April 30, 1917, in New York City, Mr. Cushing was raised in California. He was a 1934 graduate of Galileo High in San Francisco, and received his undergraduate degree from San Francisco State after attend- ing U.C. Berkeley for three years. He worked for 15 years in the San Francisco bureau of the Associated Press; then, a year before the end of World War II, he was sent to the Pacific as an AP correspondent in the Philippines and Okinawa. Mr. Cushing and two other corre- spondents were the first Americans to enter Tokyo when the war ended. They rode a streetcar into the capital from Yokohama’s Atsugi Airport, where the first U.S. planes landed. A few days later he helped cover the Japanese surrender to General Douglas MacArthur on the main deck of the battleship Missouri , then flew that afternoon to Shanghai, via a low- level flight over the destroyed city of Hiroshima. In Shanghai, he re- opened the Associated Press bureau. Mr. Cushing was married for 58 years to the former Nancy Heizer of Lovelock, Nev., who died in 1998. He is survived by three children, Jeffrey of Huntington Beach, Calif., Lincoln of Berkeley, Calif., and Martha, of Corrales, N.M.; four grandchildren; one great-grandchild; three nephews; and his companion and lifelong friend Janet Partridge of Greenbrae. His only sibling, Maxine Cushing Gray of Seattle, owner-publisher of the fort- nightly Northwest Arts , died in 1987. Contributions in Mr. Cushing’s mem- ory may be sent to St. Michael’s Home, 416 Fourth Street, San Rafael CA 94901. Jacob (“Jack”) Sloan , 86, retired FSO, died in Venice, Fla., on June 26. Mr. Sloan was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Jan. 10, 1918. He participat- ed in an educational-cultural ex- change program in Jerusalem in 1961 and 1962, and joined the U.S. Information Agency in 1965. Mr. Sloan served for many years with USIA in Washington and overseas in India and North Africa. An accom- plished editor of international publi- cations, he also wrote several volumes of poetry and a book about the Holocaust. Upon retirement, in 1986, he moved to Florida. Survivors include his wife of 32 years, Ann of Venice, Fla.; a daughter, Judith of Zirconia, N.C.; and a grand- son. Memorial donations may be made to the All Faiths Food Bank, Attn. Aundria Schooles, 717 Cattle- men Road, Sarasota FL 34232. O C T O B E R 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 77 I N M E M O R Y Send your “In Memory” submission to: Foreign Service Journal Attn: Susan Maitra 2101 E Street NW, Washington DC 20037, or e-mail it to FSJedit@afsa.org, or fax it to (202) 338-8244. No photos, please.