Julia Ann Vadala Taft (July 27, 1942 – March 15, 2008) was a

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

official who was involved in international humanitarian assistance, and who served as Director of the

Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance The Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) was an organizational unit within the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) charged by the President of the United States with directing and coordinating international Unite ...

from 1986 to 1989, and as

Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration The Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration is the head of the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration within the United States Department of State. The Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, a ...

from 1997 to 2001.

Early life

Julia Ann Vadala was born on

Governors Island Governors Island is a island in New York Harbor, within the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of Manhattan. It is located approximately south of Manhattan Island, and is separated from Brooklyn to the east by the Buttermilk ...

New York Harbor New York Harbor is a bay that covers all of the Upper Bay. It is at the mouth of the Hudson River near the East River tidal estuary on the East Coast of the United States. New York Harbor is generally synonymous with Upper New York Bay, ...

. Her father was

Colonel Colonel ( ; abbreviated as Col., Col, or COL) is a senior military Officer (armed forces), officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations. In the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, a colon ...

Anthony Vadala, a

surgeon In medicine, a surgeon is a medical doctor who performs surgery. Even though there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon is a licensed physician and received the same medical training as physicians before spec ...

in the

Army Medical Corps A medical corps is generally a military branch or officer corps responsible for medical care for serving military personnel. Such officers are typically military physicians. List of medical corps The following organizations are examples of med ...

, and her mother was Shirley Harris Vadala. She attended the

University of Colorado at Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a Public university, public research university in Boulder, Colorado, United States. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a Federated state, state, it is the fla ...

, receiving a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

in international politics in 1964, and a

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

in international politics in 1969.

Career

After graduating from the University of Colorado in 1969, Vadala completed a

White House Fellowship The White House Fellows program is a non-partisan fellowship established via Executive Order 11183 by President Lyndon B. Johnson in October 1964. The fellowship is one of the United States' most prestigious programs for leadership and public se ...

at the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest (Washington, D.C.), NW in Washington, D.C., it has served as the residence of every U.S. president ...

. She then became an aide to

United States Secretary of Health and Human Services The United States secretary of health and human services is the head of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, and serves as the principal advisor to the president of the United States on all health matters. The secretary is ...

Elliot Richardson Elliot Lee Richardson (July 20, 1920December 31, 1999) was an American lawyer and Republican politician. As a member of the cabinets of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford between 1970 and 1977, Richardson is one of two men in United States history ...

. In 1975,

U.S. president The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal government of t ...

Gerald Ford Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. (born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was the 38th president of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, Ford assumed the p ...

appointed Julia V. Taft as Director of the Interagency Task Force on Indochina Refugees created by the

Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act The Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act, passed on May 23, 1975, under President Gerald Ford, was a response to the Fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War. Under this act, approximately 130,000 refugees from South Vietnam, Laos a ...

. In this capacity, she oversaw the resettlement of more than 130,000 evacuees from

Cambodia Cambodia, officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. It is bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the north, and Vietnam to the east, and has a coastline ...

Laos Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic (LPDR), is the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by Myanmar and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the southeast, and Thailand to the west and ...

, and

Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...

after the

fall of Saigon The fall of Saigon, known in Vietnam as Reunification Day (), was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by North Vietnam on 30 April 1975. As part of the 1975 spring offensive, this decisive event led to the collapse of the So ...

. Taft would spend the next three decades designing and developing refugee programs for the

United States Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy of the United State ...

, the

United States Department of Health and Human Services The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a cabinet-level executive branch department of the US federal government created to protect the health of the US people and providing essential human services. Its motto is ...

, the

United States Agency for International Development The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an agency of the United States government that has been responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. Established in 1961 and reorganized in 1998 ...

, and the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

. From 1986 to 1989, she was the director of the

, a part of USAID. There she was responsible for coordinating the efforts of the State Department,

the Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense, in Arlington County, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. The building was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As ...

, other government agencies, and non-governmental agencies like

CARE Care may refer to: Organizations and projects * CARE (New Zealand), Citizens Association for Racial Equality, a former New Zealand organisation * CARE (England) West Midlands, Central Accident Resuscitation Emergency team, a team of doctors & ...

and

Save the Children The Save the Children Fund, commonly known as Save the Children, is an international non-governmental organization. It was founded in the UK in 1919; its goal is to improve the lives of children worldwide. The organization raises money to imp ...

in responding to requests for disaster aide from foreign governments. For example, in 1986, she administered $130 million in U.S. aide sent in response to the 1984–1985 famine in Ethiopia. In 1988, she oversaw the U.S. response to the

floods in Bangladesh Bangladesh, being situated on the Brahmaputra River Delta (also known as the Ganges Delta) is a land of many rivers, and as a result is very prone to flooding. Due to being part of such a basin and being less than 5 meters above mean sea level, B ...

that had left 25 million people homeless; smaller floods in the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. It shares a Maritime boundary, maritime border with Puerto Rico to the east and ...

and

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

; displaced persons in

Burundi Burundi, officially the Republic of Burundi, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is located in the Great Rift Valley at the junction between the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa, with a population of over 14 million peop ...

; a poisonous gas eruption in

Cameroon Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It shares boundaries with Nigeria to the west and north, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the R ...

; and a

locust Locusts (derived from the Latin ''locusta'', locust or lobster) are various species of short-horned grasshoppers in the family Acrididae that have a swarming phase. These insects are usually solitary, but under certain circumstances they b ...

plague in

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

. In the wake of the 1988 Spitak earthquake, she traveled to the

Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic The Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (ArSSR), also known as Soviet Armenia, or simply Armenia, was one of the Republics of the Soviet Union, constituent republics of the Soviet Union, located in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Soviet Armenia ...

to coordinate U.S. aid. From 1994 to 1997, Taft was head of InterAction, an alliance of

non-governmental organizations A non-governmental organization (NGO) is an independent, typically nonprofit organization that operates outside government control, though it may get a significant percentage of its funding from government or corporate sources. NGOs often focus ...

dedicated to international aide. In 1997,

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...

nominated Taft to be

, and she subsequently held this office from November 10, 1997, to January 19, 2001. From 2001 to 2004, she was director of the

United Nations Development Programme The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human development. The UNDP emphasizes on developing local capacity towar ...

's Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery, in which capacity she oversaw the

response to displaced persons related to the

War in Afghanistan War in Afghanistan, Afghan war, or Afghan civil war may refer to: *Conquest of Afghanistan by Alexander the Great (330 BC – 327 BC), the conquest of Afghanistan by the Macedonian Empire * Muslim conquests of Afghanistan, a series of campaigns in ...

Personal life

Her first marriage, to Fred Malone, ended in divorce. She then married lawyer

William Howard Taft IV William Howard Taft IV (born September 13, 1945) is an American diplomat and attorney who served in the United States government under several Republican administrations. He is a son of William Howard Taft III and a great-grandson of President ...

, great-grandson of

William H. Taft William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857March 8, 1930) served as the 27th president of the United States from 1909 to 1913 and the tenth chief justice of the United States from 1921 to 1930. He is the only person to have held both offices. ...

, in 1974. Together, the couple had: *William Howard Taft V *Maria Taft *Julia Taft Taft died of

colon cancer Colorectal cancer (CRC), also known as bowel cancer, colon cancer, or rectal cancer, is the development of cancer from the colon or rectum (parts of the large intestine). Signs and symptoms may include blood in the stool, a change in bowel ...

at her

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

home.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Taft, Julia V. 1942 births 2008 deaths Taft family United States assistant secretaries of state Deaths from colorectal cancer in Washington, D.C. 20th-century American politicians Activists from New York City