1948

1948

Ronald I. Spiers spoke with me from River Woods Retirement Home in Exeter, New Hampshire, that he and Patience find “very nice.” Ron is coping with Parkinson’s disease but staying in touch with associates in the U.S. State Department, where he spent nearly 40 years. He came to Dartmouth under Navy V-12 and served as a U.S. Navy officer from 1943 to 1947, where he learned Japanese and was stationed in the Marshall Islands. He returned to Dartmouth for his A.B. and attended the Princeton University Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in 1950 and earned a master’s in public affairs, specializing in foreign affairs.

Ron and Patience Baker married in 1949 and had three daughters and one son. He went to work for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Agency as a foreign affairs specialist and developed the proposal that gave birth to the International Atomic Energy Commission. He joined the State Department in 1955, when he worked in a variety of assignments, typically involving arms control. He served at the U.S. mission to the United Nations as a negotiator for the statute ofthe International Energy Agency and similarly with the Soviet Union on several treaties.

His career highlights chronologically included serving as director of NATO affairs, political counselor and charge d’affaires and U.S. embassy deputy chief of mission in London, assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, first U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas, U.S. ambassador to Turkey, assistant secretary of state of intelligence and research, U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, undersecretary of state for management through the Reagan administration and undersecretary general of the United Nations for political affairs, where he became the highest-ranking American citizen in the UN secretariat.

The Hon. Ronald I. Spiers retired in March 1992 with two Presidential Distinguished Executive Service awards and the honorary rank of career ambassador he was awarded by the president and the U.S. Senate in 1984 that is reserved for a small number of career officers who have served with distinction in the highest positions of the foreign service. Ron said I could flesh out his comments on the Internet and I’ve taken that liberty.

Dave Kurr, 4281 Indian Field Road, Clinton, NY 13323; (315) 853-3582; djkurr@verizon.net