The Foreign Service Journal, November 2005

She was raised in the U.S. and grad- uated from the University of Calif- ornia at Berkeley in 1940. She then joined the State Department as a secretary. Her first posting was to Stockholm; in 1945, she was trans- ferred to Berlin. There she joined the CIA, working in Berlin and, later, in Washington, D.C. In 1952 in Saigon, she married FSO Wilton Blancké, then serving as a consul in Hanoi. She accompanied her husband in Vientiane (1955- 1957) and Frankfurt (1957-1960). In 1960, when Mr. Blancké was appointed ambassador to the Re- public of the Congo, she joined him in Brazzaville and traveled with him as he presented his credentials to Chad, Gabon and the Central African Republic — the other newly-inde- pendent states to which he was the first accredited American ambas- sador. They returned to Wash- ington, D.C., in 1964, and in 1965 were assigned to Monterrey. Ambassador Blancké retired in 1968, and the couple settled in Washington, D.C. Amb. Blancké died in 1971. Mrs. Blancké worked for many years for Recordings for the Blind. She is survived by a brother and sister. Morris Draper , 77, a retired FSO and former special envoy with ambassadorial rank, died April 15 at the Washington Home hospice cen- ter. He had lung cancer. A career diplomat for 35 years, Ambassador Draper served as Presi- dent Ronald Reagan’s special envoy to the Middle East during the Lebanon crisis from 1981 to 1983. There he worked closely with U.S. special emissary Philip C. Habib to negotiate the pullback of Israeli, Syrian and Palestinian military forces from Lebanon and on the creation of security arrangements near Israel’s northern border. Amb. Draper handled many of the day-to-day details of shuttle diploma- cy during the Middle East assign- ment. He also participated in talks that led the late Yasser Arafat, then the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, to move to Tunisia dur- ing that period, and helped negotiate the ceasefire between Israel and the PLO that lasted from July 1981 to June 1982. These negotiations also produced the fragile May 17, 1983, agreement between Israel and Leb- anon to begin the withdrawal of for- eign forces from Beirut (which, how- ever, faltered due to Syria’s unwilling- ness to withdraw). Amb. Draper was a native of Berkeley, Calif. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Southern California, and served in the Army for two years. After joining the Foreign Service, he pursued Middle East graduate studies in Beirut and learned to speak Arabic and French, as well as some Spanish, Turkish and Hebrew. In the late 1970s, he participated in the Camp David peace accords and in the Israel-Egypt peace treaty negotiations that followed. Amb. Draper served as consul general in Jerusalem and deputy assistant secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs. He also held posts in Jordan, Turkey, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Singa- pore. In his last State Department assignment, he spoke on college cam- puses across the country urging stu- dents to consider the Foreign Service as a career. He retired in 1990. Amb. Draper received numerous honors, including the President’s Distinguished Service Award. He was also given an Award for Valor for his service in Amman; a special Foreign Service award for high achievement; the Wilbur J. Carr Award for distin- guished service from the State Depart- ment; and the Order of the Cedar from the Lebanese government. His marriage to Nancy Moyer Draper ended in divorce. Survivors include his second wife, Roberta Hornig Draper of Washing- ton, D.C.; three children from his first marriage, Courtney Draper Geer of Richmond, Va., Blair A. Draper of Denver, Colo., and Jonathan M. Draper of Cleveland, Tenn.; four grandchildren; and a brother. Norman H. Frisbie , 74, a retired Senior Foreign Service officer, died June 18 in Vienna, of a heart attack. Born in Wakefield, Mass., Mr. Frisbie grew up in New Bedford and graduated from the University of Massachusetts in 1959 with a degree in political science. He interspersed his college career with stints in U.S. Army intelligence at Fort Holabird in Baltimore, and in France and Ger- many, where he worked on Eastern European refugee resettlement. During his Foreign Service career, Mr. Frisbie served in Manchester, Frankfurt, Warsaw, Poznan, Maseru, Prague, Nairobi and Munich, accom- panied by his first wife, Arlene Couillard Frisbie of Gardner, Mass. (She died in 2000.) His final three tours were in Brussels, Vienna (UNVIE) and Antananarivo, the lat- ter two as DCM. He was accompa- nied by his second wife, Evelyn Eckl-Frisbie of Vienna. After retiring to Vienna in 1991, he became an accomplished cook, much to the delight of his family and friends. He returned frequently to his beloved state of Vermont to visit and care for his elderly parents. Memorial services were held in 70 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 5 I N M E M O R Y u u u