F OCUS - American Foreign Service Association

Lucius Durham Battle, 89, a
retired FSO, former ambassador and
assistant secretary of State and a former
president of AFSA, died on May
13 at his home in Washington, D.C.
Born and raised in Dawson, Ga.,
and Bradenton, Fla., Mr. Battle received
his undergraduate and law degrees
from the University of Florida
in 1939 and 1946 respectively. He
served in the Navy in the Pacific theater
during World War II.
Mr. Battle joined the State Department
in 1946, first serving on the
Canada desk. He helped manage the
Marshall Plan until 1949, when a
chance encounter with Secretary of
State Dean Acheson led to his appointment
as the Secretary’s special
assistant. Acheson called Battle his
“indispensable aide,” famously noting
that a successful diplomat needs “an
assistant with nerves of steel, a sense
of purpose, and a Southern accent.”
In 1953, Mr. Battle was posted to
Copenhagen. He then moved to
NATO headquarters in Paris for a
year before returning to the U.S. in
1956 to work with the Rockefeller
family as vice president of Colonial
Williamsburg. In 1961, he returned
to State as executive director and
executive assistant to Secretary of
State Dean Rusk. Among many management
reforms, he established the
State Department Operations Center.
78 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/JULY-AUGUST 2008
IN MEMORY
From 1962 to 1984, he served as
assistant secretary of State for education
and culture, coordinating cultural
events in Washington and working
with Senator J. William Fulbright on
the Fulbright Scholars program.
President Lyndon B. Johnson
appointed Mr. Battle as U.S. ambassador
to Egypt in 1964. In Cairo, he
faced a number of challenges, including
an attack on the embassy library,
which was burned to the ground by a
group of African students protesting
American policies. He arranged the
1966 visit to the U.S. of Anwar Sadat,
then an aide to President Gamal
Abdel Nasser. He was effective and
well-regarded by his Egyptian counterparts,
despite the growing tensions
between the two countries.
Amb. Battle was appointed assistant
secretary of State for the Near
East and North Africa in March 1967,
weeks before the outbreak of the
Arab-Israeli Six Day War. He resigned
from the Foreign Service in
1968 to become vice president of Communications
Satellite Corporation.
He later turned down two ambassadorial
appointments, one to Vietnam
during the Johnson administration
and one to Iran in 1977.
From 1973 to 1975, Amb. Battle
served as president of the Middle
East Institute, returning to Comsat in
1980. He later was president of the
Middle East Institute from 1986 to
1990, when he retired.
Amb. Battle was awarded the
Foreign Service Cup in 1984. He was
a member of both Diplomats and
Consular Officers, Retired, and the
American Foreign Service Association,
serving as the president of the
latter in 1963.
As president of the Bacon House
Foundation, he facilitated its merger
with the DACOR Education and
Welfare Foundation to create the
DACOR Bacon House Foundation in
1986. He served as vice president of
DACOR and the Foundation, and
was an honorary governor and trustee
until his death.
He also served on the boards of a
number of institutions, including as a
trustee of the John F. Kennedy Center
for the Performing Arts, the Washington
Gallery of Modern Art, the George
C. Marshall Foundation and the
American University in Cairo. He was
the first chairman of the Johns Hopkins
Foreign Policy Institute.
Amb. Battle’s wife of 55 years,
Betty Davis Battle, whom he married
in 1949, died in 2004.
He is survived by four children,
Lynne Battle of Bethesda, Md., John
Battle of Concord, Mass., Laura Battle
of Rhinebeck, N.Y., and Thomas
Battle of Belmont, Mass.; and eight
grandchildren.