Robert G. Rich Jr. (born November 15, 1930) is an American former diplomat who served as the Ambassador to Belize. Rich was born in

Gainesville, Florida Gainesville is the county seat of Alachua County, Florida, United States, and the most populous city in North Central Florida, with a population of 145,212 in 2022. It is the principal city of the Gainesville metropolitan area, Florida, Gainesv ...

on November 15, 1930. He graduated from the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida and a preem ...

in 1952 and served in the United States Navy as a junior naval officer,1952 - 1954. After serving in the Navy, he attended “

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

as a candidate in the graduate school in cultural anthropology and Asian Studies.” Rich joined the Foreign Service in 1957 after working as a junior research engineer at

Sperry Corporation Sperry Corporation was a major American equipment and electronics company whose existence spanned more than seven decades of the 20th century. Sperry ceased to exist in 1986 following a prolonged hostile takeover bid engineered by Burroughs ...

. He had also worked as a graduate research assistant in physics. After the Korean War he also worked as a graduate teaching assistant in academia. Rich would take on the following assignments: *State Department - Department Secretariat 1957-1959 *

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

- Political Officer 1959-1962 *

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

- Principal Officer 1962-1963 *State Department - Deputy Director, Operations Center 1967-1971 *

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger, more populous island of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, the country. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is the southernmost island in ...

- Deputy Chief of Mission 1971-1977 *State Department - Korea Desk 1977-1981 *State Department - Senior Seminar 1981-1982 *

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

- Deputy Chief of Mission 1982-1986 *

Belize Belize is a country on the north-eastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a maritime boundary with Honduras to the southeast. P ...

- Ambassador 1987-1990 *

Atlanta University Center The Atlanta University Center Consortium (AUC Consortium) is a collaboration between four historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in southwest Atlanta, Georgia: Clark Atlanta University, Spelman College, Morehouse College, and the Mo ...

- Ambassador-in-Residence 1990-1991 When Philippine President

Ferdinand Marcos Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos Sr. (September 11, 1917 – September 28, 1989) was a Filipino lawyer, politician, dictator, and Kleptocracy, kleptocrat who served as the tenth president of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He ruled the c ...

was deposed in 1986 after a 20-year dictatorship, he and 90 other members of his entourage found themselves in exile in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

. Robert Rich was assigned by the State Department as the minder of the Marcoses, as the deposed leader demanded a direct line with President

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party a ...

References

1930 births Living people Ambassadors of the United States to Belize Cornell University alumni Military personnel from Florida People from Gainesville, Florida University of Florida alumni {{US-diplomat-stub