The Foreign Service Journal, October 2006

Mr. Honan leaves his partner, Chul Beom Park of Washington, D.C. Ray E. Jones , 84, a retired Foreign Service staff officer, died on Aug. 4 at Suburban Hospital in Washington, D.C., following a heart attack. Born in Rensselaer, Ind., Mr. Jones served in the Army in World War II. Like other veterans, he ended the war in Berlin and stayed on as a civilian in the military government. He was later integrated into the Foreign Service, serving in the consulates and high commission of the U.S. Occupa- tion Administration of Germany. After service at Consulate General Duesseldorf in the unusual position of a male secretary, in the mid-1950s Mr. Jones was named secretary to U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland Frances Willis, the first female career Foreign Service officer to be appointed ambas- sador. Unlike colleagues who chose to convert to general administrative duties and rose in rank to levels equat- ed with Foreign Service officers, Mr. Jones preferred to remain a secretary, and his exceptional stenographic and office management skills made his ser- vice increasingly sought after. Follow- ing Switzerland, he spent four years in Khartoum where, as friends recall, he reported that his winnings at the bridge table in the diplomatic commu- nity enabled him to afford the lifestyle he sought in his next post, Vienna. In addition to outstanding talent at the bridge table and fluency in several languages, Mr. Jones had a keen eye for art, furniture, antiques and carpets. His quarters at every post, friends recall, were often the most attractive and elegantly furnished of any, includ- ing those of the ambassador. In Vienna, Ambassador James W. Riddle- berger sometimes used Jones’ mid- town apartment for private conversa- tions with Austrian leaders, rather than invite them to his residence in suburban Hietzing. In 1964, Mr. Jones was appointed secretary to Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when Taylor was appointed ambassador to Vietnam. After the O C T O B E R 2 0 0 6 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 89 I N M E M O R Y