James W. Spain - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

James W. Spain was in the US Foreign Service with postings in Karachi

Karachi

Karachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...

, Islamabad

Islamabad

Islamabad is the capital of Pakistan and the tenth largest city in the country. Located within the Islamabad Capital Territory , the population of the city has grown from 100,000 in 1951 to 1.7 million in 2011...

, Istanbul

Istanbul

Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...

, Ankara

Ankara

Ankara is the capital of Turkey and the country's second largest city after Istanbul. The city has a mean elevation of , and as of 2010 the metropolitan area in the entire Ankara Province had a population of 4.4 million....

, Dar Es Salaam

Dar es Salaam

Dar es Salaam , formerly Mzizima, is the largest city in Tanzania. It is also the country's richest city and a regionally important economic centre. Dar es Salaam is actually an administrative province within Tanzania, and consists of three local government areas or administrative districts: ...

, and Colombo

Colombo

Colombo is the largest city of Sri Lanka. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, the capital of Sri Lanka. Colombo is often referred to as the capital of the country, since Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte is a satellite city of Colombo...

and four ambassadorships in Tanzania

Tanzania

The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...

, Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

, the United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

(as deputy permanent representative), and Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...

.

His son is Patrick Spain

Patrick Spain

Patrick J. Spain is the co-founder of Hoover's, founder of HighBeam Research and is the co-founder and Executive Chairman of news curation site Newser....

, founder of Hoover's

Hoover's

Hoover's, Inc., a subsidiary of Dun & Bradstreet, is a business research company that has provided information on U.S. and foreign companies and industries since 1990. Since 1993, the company has made its information available on its website.-Operations:...

and HighBeam Research

HighBeam Research

HighBeam Research is a paid search engine owned by Cengage Learning for newspapers, magazines, academic journals, newswires, trade magazines and encyclopedias...

Biography

Ambassador Spain was born in 1926 in Chicago, Illinois, where he attended St Brendan's Parochial School and Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary

Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary

Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary was an American seminary preparatory school administered by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago for young men considering the priesthood...

where his classmates included priest/author Andrew Greeley

Andrew Greeley

Father Andrew M. Greeley is an Irish-American Roman Catholic priest, sociologist, journalist and fiction writer....

and “Vatican Banker” Paul Marcinkus

Paul Marcinkus

Paul Casimir Marcinkus was an American archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church. He was best known for his tenure as President of the Vatican Bank from 1971 through 1989.-Early life:...

. He received a Masters Degree from the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

and a PhD from Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

.

Ambassador Spain served in World War II, for a time serving on General Douglas MacArthur's staff as a photographer in occupied Japan. He entered the Foreign Service in 1951, and spent the entirety of his career in government service. His assignments took him to Pakistan, Turkey, Tanzania, the UN, and Sri Lanka.

His first post was as Vice Consul in Karachi in 1951. Following that he returned the U.S. where he lived, mostly in Washington, DC, until 1969. He was appointed as Chargé d'Affaires to Pakistan in 1969, Consul General in Istanbul from 1970–1972, Deputy Chief of Mission in Ankara (1972–1974), Ambassador to Tanzania (1975–1979) and Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations under Andrew Young briefly in 1979, Ambassador to Turkey from 1980–1981, and finally as Ambassador to Sri Lanka from 1985 - 1988. He retired a Career Minister in the Foreign Service and remained in Sri Lanka until 2006, when he returned to the United States, settling in Wilmington, NC.

He was the author of numerous books, including In Those Days, American Diplomacy in Turkey, The Way of the Pathans, Pathans of the Latter Day, and a series of novels featuring Dodo Dillon. He contributed articles on foreign affairs to a variety of publications.

Ambassador Spain lived a distinguished life of service to his country and dedication to his friends and family. He was a remarkably able diplomat who drew on his own odyssey from an impoverished youth on the South Side of Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

– the son of a streetcar conductor and a seamstress who were Irish immigrants – to attending receptions with Presidents and Prime Ministers to inspire those around him to seek the best for themselves and their country. He met adversity with strength, rudeness with grace, and challenges with enthusiasm. He played pivotal roles in maintaining and strengthening the United States alliance with Turkey, in bringing about a peaceful transition to majority rule in Zimbabwe, and strengthening the United States' relations with all the countries of the subcontinent. He was most proud not of the headlines that he had a part in, but of the headlines that never had to be written, thanks to his work defusing tensions between nations.

One of his earliest memories of Chicago was being taken by his father to watch Al Capone

Al Capone

Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone was an American gangster who led a Prohibition-era crime syndicate. The Chicago Outfit, which subsequently became known as the "Capones", was dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging liquor, and other illegal activities such as prostitution, in Chicago from the early...

walk through City Hall. His glimpse of the legendary gangster impressed many, among them Jawaharlal Nehru

Jawaharlal Nehru

Jawaharlal Nehru , often referred to with the epithet of Panditji, was an Indian statesman who became the first Prime Minister of independent India and became noted for his “neutralist” policies in foreign affairs. He was also one of the principal leaders of India’s independence movement in the...

, the first prime minister of India, who once held up a reception line just to hear about it.

James W. Spain, 81, died on January 2, 2008 of natural causes in Wilmington, NC.

He was preceded in death by his wife Edith and daughter Sikandra. He is survived by his sons, Patrick Spain

Patrick Spain

Patrick J. Spain is the co-founder of Hoover's, founder of HighBeam Research and is the co-founder and Executive Chairman of news curation site Newser....

, Stephen and William and his grandchildren, Jeanne, James, Aidan, Katherine, and Rachel.

Publications

He authored a number of books. In Those Days: A Diplomat Remembers is his autobiography

Autobiography

An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...

, a memoir of his time as an American diplomat who spent most of his life in Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

and Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

, engaged in high-level diplomacy

Diplomacy

Diplomacy is the art and practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of groups or states...

.

He is also the author of The Pathan Borderland; People of the Khyber; Pathans of the Latter Day; and Diplomacy in Turkey.the way of the pathans ISBN-10: 0196360994Publisher: Oxford University Press; First Edition. 2nd edition (1973)http://books.google.com/books/about/The_way_of_the_Pathans.html?id=WmgfAAAAMAAJ

.

Other activities

In retirement, James W. Spain actively engaged in organizing a power and irrigation
Irrigation
Irrigation may be defined as the science of artificial application of water to the land or soil. It is used to assist in the growing of agricultural crops, maintenance of landscapes, and revegetation of disturbed soils in dry areas and during periods of inadequate rainfall...

project in Sri Lanka.

External links

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