The Foreign Service Journal, November 2022

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER 2022 75 from Frostburg State Teachers College in Maryland in 1950. He briefly taught junior high school in Gaithersburg, Md., while working on his master’s degree at the University of Maryland. Offered a position as special agent in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, he readily accepted and served in Washing- ton, D.C., San Francisco and Stockton, Calif., and Chicago, Ill. In 1957 he joined the Department of State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security and served in a variety of positions, including, memorably, as part of the security detail for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip when they visited Washington and Wil- liamsburg in 1957. Commissioned as a Foreign Service officer in 1970, Mr. Byrnes worked with international organizations in Washing- ton, D.C., and New York. From 1970 to 1974, he was the U.S. representative to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Pro- gramme in Rome. Returning to Washington, he became director of international conferences. During this time, his office supported the Camp David peace negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. From 1979 to 1982, Mr. Byrnes served in Antigua, opening a consulate general covering five Eastern Caribbean coun- tries and transitioning it to an embassy following Antigua and Barbuda’s inde- pendence from the United Kingdom. After resuming duties in Washington, Mr. Byrnes was dispatched to a U.N. World Tourism Conference in New Delhi, where he helped pass a resolution con- demning the destruction of an unarmed civilian Korean aircraft. As a result of that success, he was offered a position as assistant secretary-general of the U.N. World Tourism Organization in Madrid. In 1988 Mr. Byrnes retired to Sara- sota, where he organized and led an active Christopher Columbus Quincen- tenary Jubilee Commission. He joined the United Nations Association and the Foreign Service Retirees Association of Florida, serving seven years as board chair of the latter. He helped restart the Sarasota Sister Cities Association and served as vice president for three years. He also began a real estate career and volunteered on several homeowner association boards, with arts and political groups, and at Doctors Hospital of Sara- sota. He had been a member of Incarna- tion Parish since 1988 and of American Legion Post 24 in Frostburg since 1944. Mr. Byrnes is survived by his wife of 54 years, Hope; three children, Paul, Kate (also an FSO, most recently serving as ambassador to North Macedonia), and Sean, and their spouses; three grandchil- dren; and many nieces and nephews. n Sidney Leonard Hamolsky, 95, a retired Foreign Service officer, died from acute kidney failure on Jan. 19, 2022, in Portland, Ore. Born in Malden, Mass., on Oct. 31, 1926, Mr. Hamolsky grew up in nearby Lynn and served as a wartime translator in the Pacific theater during World War II. He lied to officials about his profound colorblindness to enlist as a 17-year-old private in the U.S. Army. In 1954 he joined the U.S. Information Agency and was promptly sent to Mexico City to direct, and to teach English in, the USIA Binational Center. While there, he also wrote his first textbook on language acquisition, a popular departure from texts of the time that focused exclusively on grammar or translation. It was also in Mexico City that Mr. Hamolsky met his future wife, Esperanza, who was one of his language students. She was lively and beautiful, and he fell in love with her at once. They were mar- ried for 66 years. In 1961, Mr. Hamolsky obtained his first master’s degree, in American social and intellectual history from Brown University in Providence, R.I. He earned a second master’s in 1971 at the Univer- sity of California–Los Angeles, in Latin American politics and economics with a focus on Puerto Rico. Mr. Hamolsky relished his work within the binational centers at post, particu- larly at the start of his career, when he was often the single serving American official in Concepción, Athens, or Kyoto, and thus given almost infinite latitude and creativity in program design. Mr. Hamolsky also served in Bogotá, Brasilia, Tokyo, and Mexico City as the cultural affairs officer. He turned down three offers of promotion to the role of public affairs officer to further the work he enjoyed most. Whether escorting the entire Count Basie Orchestra from concert to con- cert in Greece; attending Urasenke, the renowned Japanese school of tea ceremony founded in the late 1500s, as an honored guest; being featured as a patron of a tatami restaurant in the Time Life book series, “Foods of the World: The Cooking of Japan” (USA Time Inc., 1968); or overseeing a concert for American violinist and music ambassador Daniel Heifetz in Bogotá, Mr. Hamolsky seam- lessly transitioned from one diplomatic engagement to the next. He ushered dig- nitaries through fires, floods, typhoons, and an 8.0 magnitude earthquake. Highlights of his time overseas included the opportunity to host Frances Perkins, his greatest hero and exem- plar; Sandra Day O’Connor; Robert and Edward Kennedy; and then–Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman