Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Obituary Notice: Robert A. Rockweiler, Former USIA Senior Foreign Service Officer


via LJB by email; on USIA, see.
image from

Excerpt from LJB message:
ROBERT A. ROCKWEILER, Foreign Service Diplomat
Robert A. Rockweiler, 88, of New Smyrna Beach, Florida, a senior foreign service officer with the U.S.Information Agency (USIA) died May 30th, 2016.
He was born in Cazenovia, Wisconsin, and graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1950 with a major in Hispanic Studies; after which, he served with the U.S. Army during the Korean conflict.
He then earned a Master's degree from Columbia University in Educational Administration. For three years he taught Spanish and coached track at Bloomfield senior High in Bloomfield, N.J. before joining the foreign service. He is a graduate of the Senior Warfare course at the National War College in 1970 where he also received a Master's degree from the George Washington University in International Affairs.
Rockweiler joined the USIA in 1956. He married Vivian Schleicher at the Monticulo Catholic church in La Paz, Bolivia, on June 15, 1957.
His overseas assignments, in the field of public diplomacy, were in Bolivia, Colombia, Guatemala, South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania, Panama and Ecuador, the latter two as Counselor of Embassy.
In Washington DC, he served as Director of the Programs Office and as Senior Inspector in the Office of the Inspector General. He was a member of the Senior Foreign Service.
Two infamous next-door neighbors, both unelected presidents, punctuated his overseas experience – Uganda's Idi Amin and Panama's Manuel Antonio Noriega.
In retirement, he taught English as a Foreign Language at The George Washington University and Georgetown University. He continued to travel widely, having visited over one hundred countries. He also developed a web site which detailed his family history and genealogy, going back to the early seventeenth century in Switzerland.
And in 2009 he wrote his memoir entitled, “Looking Back at 81 – a career in the foreign service.” ... 

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