The Foreign Service Journal, December 2020

24 DECEMBER 2020 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL He served in the U.S. Army for three years and later spent four years in the U.S. Marine Corps. He worked for the State Department after the Marine Corps and joined the U.S. For- eign Service in 1972. In 1978, Mr. Perkins was assigned to Accra, Ghana, as counselor for political affairs, serving there for three years. From1981 to 1983, he was deputy chief of mission inMonrovia, Liberia. Returning to Washington, he directed State’s Office of West African Affairs until 1985, when he was appointed ambassador to Liberia. The following year, he was confirmed as ambassador to the Republic of South Africa, where he served until 1989. He was the first Black U.S. ambassador to serve in that country. Ambassador Perkins was then appointed as Director General of the Foreign Service and Director of Personnel in the Department of State, serving in that position for three years. In 1992, he became U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and U.S. representative on the U.N. Security Council, serving in that capacity until 1993, when he was named U.S. ambassador to Australia, his final Foreign Service posting. On Aug. 31, 1996, Ambassador Perkins retired from the Foreign Service with the rank of Career Minister. During his 24-year diplomatic career and in “retirement,” Ambassador Perkins received numerous awards, including the Presidential Distinguished and Meritorious Service Awards and the Department of State’s Distinguished Honor and Superior Honor Awards; and in 2001, the State Department presented him with the Director General’s Cup. In 1992 George Washing- ton University named him Statesman of the Year. He is an active member of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity and, in 1993, received their highest honor, the Laurel Wreath Award for Achievement and Diplomatic Service. Following his retire- ment from the Foreign Service in 1996, he was appointed as the William J. Crowe Chair and as executive director of the International Programs Center for the University of Oklahoma, serving fromAugust 1996 until December 2010. He also served as a senior adviser at The Stevenson Group, a Washington, D.C.–based consulting firm. Ambassador Perkins has served as the Distinguished Jerry Collins Lecturer in Public Administration at Florida State Univer- sity; as a member of the Presidential/Congressional Commission on the Public Service; and as a member of the White House Advi- sory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiation. He is a member of and has served on the boards of numerous professional asso- ciations in the areas of defense and international affairs. In 2006 the University of Oklahoma Press published Ambassador Perkins’ memoir (written with Connie Cronley), Mr. Ambassador: Warrior for Peace . He has also co-edited sev- eral books, all published by the University of Oklahoma Press: The Middle East Peace Process: Vision versus Reality, with Joseph Ginat and Edwin G. Corr (2002); Democracy, Morality and the Search for Peace in America’s Foreign Policy, with David L. Boren (2002); Palestinian Refugees: Traditional Positions and New Solu- tions, with Joseph Ginat (2001); and Preparing America’s Foreign Policy for the 21st Century, with David L. Boren (1999). Ambassador Perkins’ beloved wife, the former Lucy Ching- mei Liu, passed away in 2009. They have two daughters, Kather- ine and Sarah, and four grandchildren. FSJ Editor-in-Chief Shawn Dorman worked with Katherine and Sarah to conduct the following interview with Ambassa- dor Perkins in September. All photographs are courtesy of the Perkins family. At left: Edward J. Perkins on patrol in Korea, 1947. At right: Perkins and his wife- to-be, Lucy Ching-mei Liu, shortly after they met in Taipei in 1958.