The Foreign Service Journal, December 2004

Blood’s book is engaging in large part because of his even-handed review of the events of that time. He was a man who “called it like he saw it,” with considerable integrity. In discussing the telegram in his book, 31 years later, Blood is self- critical on two points. Firstly, he regrets not according it a higher level of classification. Secondly, he wishes he had toned down the claim that “our government has failed to take forceful measures to protect its own citizens.” “Damage Control” The reaction to the cable was, in Blood’s words, “a masterful demon- stration of damage control.” Ambassa- dor Joseph Farland in Islam- abad immediately ordered all copies destroyed. In Washington, Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Joe Sisco called Henry Kissinger and com- mented, “My people seem to be leav- ing the reservation.” In a disturbing echo of this racist slur, supportive comments made by U.S. Ambassador to New Delhi Kenneth Keating were written off by President Nixon, who described Keating as having been “taken over by the Indians.” Archer Blood was curtailed from Dhaka in June 1971, and sent to molder in the Personnel Bureau for the next several years. “I paid a price for my dissent,” he said in a 1982 interview. “But I had no choice. The line between right and wrong was just too clear-cut. Douglas Kerr and his wife, Michelle Jones, assistant public affairs officer in Dhaka, have lived in the U.K., Canada, Estonia and the U.S. Since joining the Foreign Service, they have lived in Warsaw, and are cur- rently midway through a tour in Bangladesh. He is working both as a custom cabinet-maker and as writer editor for an NGO umbrella organi- zation. He is also the author of “The Plight of the Pantoflarz: Trailing Husbands in the Foreign Service,” in Realities of Foreign Service Life (AAFSW, 2002). D E C E M 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 63 Archer Kent Blood , 81, died of arterial sclerosis on Sept. 3 at the Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colo. Born in Chicago, Ill., he was the eldest of four children. He was vale- dictorian of his high school class in Lynchburg, Va., and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Virginia in 1943. He earned a mas- ter’s degree in international relations from The George Washington University in 1963. Mr. Blood served with the U.S. Navy in the North Pacific from 1944 to 1946 before joining the Foreign Service in 1947. His 35-year Foreign Service career began with a posting as vice consul to Thessaloniki in 1947, fol- lowed by a posting to Munich in 1949. In 1950 he was sent to Athens and, following a short tour as vice consul in Algiers, he was assigned to Bonn in 1953. In 1960, he was post- ed to Dhaka, in what was then East Pakistan, as deputy principal officer. In 1965 he was posted to Kabul as the deputy chief of mission, and from 1968 to 1970 served as political counselor in Athens. In 1970 he was posted as consul general to Dhaka, but was recalled in June 1971 following the “Blood Telegram” on the lack of U.S. reac- tion to the Pakistan military’s 1971 massacre in East Pakistan, and assigned to the State Department’s personnel office. In 1974, he was posted as diplomatic adviser to the commandant at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., where he became the first civilian to be named deputy commandant for international affairs. In 1977, under the Carter admin- istration, Mr. Blood was appointed DCM in New Delhi, and for the last several months of his four-year tour there served as chargé d’affairs. Mr. Blood left the Foreign Service in May 1982 to become diplomat in residence at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pa., retiring in 1990. He was guest lecturer at a number of universities, and pub- lished articles and a book, The Cruel Birth of Bangladesh: Mem- oirs of an American Diplomat (University Press, Ltd., 2002), recounting the story of Bangladeshi aspirations for autonomy under Pakistan and the emergence of the state of Bangladesh. Besides the Herter Award from AFSA, Mr. Blood received the John Jacob Rodgers Award and the Meritorious Honor Award from the State Department, and the Distin- guished Civilian Service Award from the Department of the Army. In 1993, Mr. Blood and his wife settled in Fort Collins, where they enjoyed both “the best climate in the world” and full-time involve- ment as grandparents. Mr. Blood’s hobbies included gardening, travel and hiking. Survivors include his wife of 56 years, Margaret (Millward) formerly of Tenafly, N.J., who traveled to Greece for their wedding in 1948; daughters Shireen Updegraff of Fort Collins and Barbara Rankin of Denver, Colo.; sons Peter R. Blood of Alexandria, Va., and Archer L. Blood of Shaker Heights, Ohio; three sis- ters; and eight grandchildren. Mem- orial contributions may be made to The Nature Conservancy.