James William Spain (July 22, 1926 – January 2, 2008) was in the

US Foreign Service The United States Foreign Service is the primary personnel system used by the diplomatic service of the United States federal government, under the aegis of the United States Department of State. It consists of over 13,000 professionals carry ...

with postings in

Karachi Karachi (; ur, ; ; ) is the most populous city in Pakistan and 12th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 20 million. It is situated at the southern tip of the country along the Arabian Sea coast. It is the former c ...

Islamabad Islamabad (; ur, , ) is the capital city of Pakistan. It is the country's ninth-most populous city, with a population of over 1.2 million people, and is federally administered by the Pakistani government as part of the Islamabad Capital ...

Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...

Ankara Ankara ( , ; ), historically known as Ancyra and Angora, is the capital of Turkey. Located in the central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5.1 million in its urban center and over 5.7 million in Ankara Province, maki ...

Dar Es Salaam Dar es Salaam (; from ar, دَار السَّلَام, Dâr es-Selâm, lit=Abode of Peace) or commonly known as Dar, is the largest city and financial hub of Tanzania. It is also the capital of Dar es Salaam Region. With a population of over s ...

, and

Colombo Colombo ( ; si, කොළඹ, translit=Koḷam̆ba, ; ta, கொழும்பு, translit=Koḻumpu, ) is the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. According to the Brookings Institution, Colombo me ...

and four ambassadorships in

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...

, the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...

(as deputy permanent representative), and

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

. His son is

Patrick Spain Patrick J. Spain (born 1952) is a serial entrepreneur. He is currently the co-founder and CEO of First Stop Health, LLC., a Chicago-based provider of telemedicine services. He is also the Executive Chairman and co-founder of the news curation sit ...

, founder of

Hoover's D&B Hoovers was founded by Gary Hoover and Patrick Spain in 1990Solomon, Steve.The Dynamic Duo" '' Inc.''. October 15, 1997. Retrieved on April 7, 2014. as an American business research company that provided information on companies and indu ...

and

HighBeam Research HighBeam Research was a paid search engine and full text online archive owned by Gale, a subsidiary of Cengage, for thousands of newspapers, magazines, academic journals, newswires, trade magazines, and encyclopedias in English. It was head ...

Biography

Spain was born in 1926 in Chicago, Illinois, to Irish immigrants who worked as a streetcar conductor and a seamstress. He attended St Brendan's Parochial School and

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. Located in downtown Chicago at 103 East Chestnut Street, a ...

where his classmates included priest/author Andrew Greeley and "Vatican Banker"

Paul Marcinkus Paul Casimir Marcinkus (; January 15, 1922 – February 20, 2006) was an American archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church and president of the Institute for the Works of Religion, commonly known as the Vatican Bank, from 1971 to 1989. Early ...

. He received a master's degree from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

and a PhD from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. 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. Spain 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. One of his earliest memories of growing up on the South Side of Chicago was being taken by his father to watch

Al Capone Alphonse Gabriel Capone (; January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947), sometimes known by the nickname "Scarface", was an American gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-founder and boss of the ...

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

Jawaharlal Nehru Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (; ; ; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian Anti-colonial nationalism, anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat— * * * * and author who was a central figure in India du ...

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

Personal life

In retirement Spain actively engaged in organizing a power and

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has been devel ...

project in Sri Lanka. He died on January 2, 2008, of natural causes in Wilmington, North Carolina, at the age of 81. He was preceded in death by his wife Edith and daughter Sikandra. He is survived by his sons,

, Stephen, William (since deceased) and his grandchildren, Jeanne, James, Aidan, Katherine, and Rachel.

Publications

Spain authored a number of books
''In Those Days: A Diplomat Remembers''
is his

autobiography An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life. It is a form of biography. Definition The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English peri ...

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

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

and

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

, engaged in high-level

diplomacy Diplomacy comprises spoken or written communication by representatives of states (such as leaders and diplomats) intended to influence events in the international system.Ronald Peter Barston, ''Modern diplomacy'', Pearson Education, 2006, p. ...

. He is also the author o
''The Pathan Borderland''''People of the Khyber''''Pathans of the Latter Day''Diplomacy in Turkey''
an

External links

* ttp://www.asiantribune.com/?q=node/9055 Asian Tribune Obituary The Demise of American Diplomat James W. Spain: An Eulogy
Daily News (Sri Lanka) Obituary: Recollections of Ambassador James W. Spain

* ttp://www.newser.com/story/17028.html Video of Senator Patrick Leahy's Tribute to James Spain on the floor of the U.S. Senate on February 4, 2008
Memories in Asia
{{DEFAULTSORT:Spain, James W. Ambassadors of the United States to Turkey Cold War diplomats Political realists 1926 births 2008 deaths Ambassadors of the United States to Sri Lanka United States Foreign Service personnel People from Chicago Columbia University alumni University of Chicago alumni American expatriates in Pakistan American expatriates in Tanzania 20th-century American diplomats