The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2016

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JULY-AUGUST 2016 91 Lake Havasu City, Ariz. Memorial contributions in his name may be made to Vietnam veterans’ causes or to Doctors Without Borders. Send online condolences at www. staufferfuneralhome.com. n Donald Boyd Easum , 92, a retired Foreign Service officer and former U.S. ambassador, died on April 16 in Summit, N.J., of natural causes. Mr. Easum was born in Culver, Ind., on Aug. 27, 1923, and raised in Madison, Wis., where his father was a professor and chairman of the history department at the University of Wisconsin and his mother a church organist. He graduated from the Hotchkiss School in Connecti- cut in 1942. Following service in the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1946, including 10 months on Iwo Jima in the U.S. Army Air Force, he received a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Wisconsin in 1947. He taught secondary school at the John Burroughs School in St. Louis, Mo., and then joined The New York Times as a city news reporter. In 1950, Mr. Easum received two master’s degrees, in public affairs and art, from the Woodrow Wilson School of Pub- lic and International Affairs at Princeton University. Following studies at London University on a Fulbright scholarship, and in Buenos Aires on a Doherty Foun- dation grant and Penfield fellowship, he earned a doctorate in international politics from Princeton in 1953. That same year, Mr. Easum joined the Foreign Service for what would be a 27-year diplomatic career. In basic train- ing at the Foreign Service Institute, his hesitation, on principle, to state that he was anti-communist delayed his security clearance, and thus a diplomatic assign- ment, for more than a year. During this time, he met and married Augusta Pentecost of Gadsden, Ala., who had served as a Foreign Service secretary and consular assistant in Ethiopia and Spain. The couple had four children, each born on a different continent. Mr. Easum’s overseas postings included Nicaragua, Indonesia, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau and Niger. He was given the Department of State’s Meritorious Service Award for his work in Indonesia. In 1971, Mr. Easum was appointed U.S. ambassador to Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), where he served until 1974. The host government bestowed the title of Commandeur de l’Ordre National on Ambassador Easum for his leadership of international famine relief activities. He was named ambassador to Nigeria in 1975, serving there until 1979. He was instrumental in turning around previ- ously acrimonious relations between the United States and Nigeria, and contrib- uted to the country’s first successful transition from a military regime to a democratically elected government. During the Nixon-Ford administra- tion, he served as assistant secretary of State for African affairs, working tire- lessly to avoid greater conflict in south- ern Africa. In all, he devoted more than three decades of his professional career to the improvement of U.S. relations with Africa. Earlier Washington, D.C., assign- ments included executive secretary for the Agency for International Develop- ment and staff director of the National Security Council’s Interdepartmental Group for Latin America. A competitive but friendly tennis and ping pong player, Amb. Easum promoted diplomacy via both of those sports. He persuaded Chinese officials to fund coaching for promising Voltaïque table-tennis players. He also helped to organize the first professional ten- nis tournament in West Africa, which featured international greats Arthur Ashe and Stan Smith, among others. He was also a fine trumpet and cornet player and enjoyed both choir directing and singing. Amb. Easum retired from the Foreign Service in 1980 with the rank of Career Minister. He then assumed the presi- dency of the Africa-America Institute in New York, and led that organization from 1980 to 1988. This work was followed by more than 20 years of international lecturing, nonprofit board memberships and activism on behalf of global under- standing and human rights causes. Amb. Easum was predeceased by his wife, Augusta Pentecost Easum, in 1992. He is survived by four children and nine grandchildren: Jefferson (and his wife, Alessandra) of Mexico City, and their children, Nicole and André; David Easum (and his partner, Karine) of Lagos, his daughter, Lauren, and their son, Tom; Susan Easum Greaney (and her husband, Michael) of Scotch Plains, N.J., and their children Charlotte, Claire and Scott; John Easum (and his wife, Laila) of Tokyo, and their children Maya and Zachary; and a sister, Janet Easum Bay, of Traverse City, Mich. Memorial donations may be made to the National Peace Corps Association, the American Foreign Service Associa- tion, Crescent Concerts (c/o Crescent Avenue Presbyterian Church) or to the charity of your choice. n Brandon H. Grove Jr., 87, a retired Foreign Service officer and former ambassador, died on May 20 at his home in Washington, D.C., of complications from cancer. Brandon Hambright Grove Jr. was born in Chicago on April 8, 1929. He graduated in 1950 from Bard College