William Stoltzfus

William Alfred Stoltzfus Jr. (November 3, 1924 – September 6, 2015) was an American Foreign Service Officer and diplomat.[1]

Early life

Stoltzfus was born in Beirut in 1924. His father was a Mennonite from Ohio and his mother a Presbyterian from Minneapolis. Stoltzfus' father was principal of a boys' school in Aleppo, Syria, and later president of the Beirut College for Women.

Stoltzfus was tutored in Aleppo before going to the American Community School in Beirut and learned to speak Arabic and French at an early age. At fifteen, he returned to the United States to attend Deerfield Academy and, later, Princeton University.

In 1943 Stoltzfus left Princeton to become a pilot in the United States Naval Air Corps. He returned to Princeton at the end of the war and attended the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs. After his graduation in 1949, Stoltzfus failed his first attempt at the Foreign Service exam; his childhood abroad left him without a strong knowledge of U.S. geography.[2]

Diplomatic career

Stoltzfus' first post was in Alexandria, Egypt, where he worked as an economic officer and reported on the production of flax and other natural resources. After doing economic reporting in Benghazi, Libya, Stoltzfus was assigned to Kuwait, where he did consular work with Palestinian refugees applying for visas to the United States. He then did political reporting in Jidda, Damascus, and Aden before being assigned as Ambassador to Oman, Qatar, and Bahrain in 1972. In 1974, he would return to Kuwait, his first posting, as the new ambassador. In 1976 Stoltzfus retired from the foreign service and went into banking.[2]

Service chronology

Position	Host country or organization	Year
US Foreign Service	Alexandria, Egypt	1950 to 1952
US Foreign Service	Benghazi, Libya	1952 to 1954
US Foreign Service	Kuwait City, Kuwait	1954 to 1956
US Foreign Service	Damascus, Syria	1956 to 1957
US Foreign Service	Jeddah, Saudi Arabia	1957 to 1959
US Foreign Service	Aden, Yemen	1959 to 1961
US Foreign Service	Addis Ababa, Ethiopia	1966 to 1968
U.S. Ambassador	Muscat, Oman (concurrent accreditation to Bahrain, Qatar and United Arab Emirates)	1972 to 1974
U.S. Ambassador	Kuwait City, Kuwait	1974 to 1976

References

1. "William Alfred Stoltzfus Jr". Idaho Mountain Express Newspaper. Retrieved 19 April 2018.

External links

• Interview

Diplomatic posts
Preceded by John N. Gatch, Jr.	United States Ambassador to Bahrain 1971–1974	Succeeded by Joseph W. Twinam
Preceded by office established	United States Ambassador to Qatar 1971–1974	Succeeded by Robert Peter Paganelli
Preceded by office established	United States Ambassador to United Arab Emirates 1972–1974	Succeeded by Michael Sterner
Preceded by John Patrick Walsh	United States Ambassador to Kuwait 1972–1976	Succeeded by Frank E. Maestrone