Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, June/July 1997, pg. 121

Bulletin Board

Compiled by Janet McMahon

Convenings

The Middle East Institute will host author Frances Meade for a discussion and signing of her book Honey and Onions: A Memoir of Saudi Arabia in the Sixties, May 14, 5 p.m. in the Boardman Room; former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs and U.S. Ambassador to Turkey George McGhee will discuss and sign his new book, On the Frontline in the Cold War: An Ambassador Reports, June 4, 5:30 p.m. in the MEI Library. Both events are free, but RSVPs are required; contact MEI, 1761 N St. NW, Washington, DC 20036, (202) 785-1141.

"Teaching About the Arab World and Islam," a series of teacher workshops sponsored by the Middle East Policy Council in Washington, DC and conducted by Audrey Shabbas of AWAIR, will be held at the Ohio Dept. of Education, Columbus, OH, June 20; Prince William County Schools, Woodbridge, VA, June 23-24; and Columbia Public Schools, Columbia, MO, Aug. 20. For additional information contact AWAIR, 1865 Euclid Ave., Berkeley, CA 94709, (510) 704-0517.

Waging Peace

A "Campaign to Commemorate the 30th Anniversary of the June War" has drafted a statement to bring the issue of Middle East peace before the American public and is serving as a liaison to encourage local activities and programs planned to observe the war and consequent Israeli occupation of Arab lands. The committee can be contacted at 3295 Lundy Lane, Bettendorf, IA 52722-3989, fax (319) 332-8653, e-mail Betzdbsw@aol.com

Nominations are being accepted for the Reebok Human Rights Award, which recognizes young people on the forefront of the fight for human rights in the U.S. and around the world with a $25,000 grant, national and international attention and moral support. Candidates must be no older than 30 and must not advocate violence or belong to an organization that advocates violence. For complete information and nomination forms contact The Reebok Foundation Human Rights Award, 100 Technology Center Dr., Stoughton, MA 02072, phone (617) 297-4377, fax (617) 297-4806, e-mail karen.hirschfeld@reebok.com Nomination deadline is June 16.

Appointments

At the State Department, John Herbst, currently top deputy to the director of Russian affairs, will be the new U.S. consul in East Jerusalem. Edward (Skip) Gnehm, former ambassador to Kuwait and most recently on the staff of then-U.N. Ambassador Madeleine K. Albright, has been appointed director general of the Foreign Service. Career foreign service officer Robert S. Gelbard, most recently assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement, has been named special representative of the president for the Dayton peace accords.

Deaths

Former Israeli President Chaim Herzog died in Tel Aviv April 17 of pneumonia and heart ailments at the age of 78. Born Vivian Herzog in Belfast to Ireland's chief rabbi, he was Ireland's bantamweight boxing champion and a member of the British bar before emigrating to Palestine in 1935. He enlisted in the British Army during World War II and, as an intelligence officer, helped identify the captured Nazi Gestapo chief Heinrich Himmler. He returned to Palestine after the war and joined the underground Jewish militia Haganah. From 1948-1950 and from 1959-62 he was chief of Israel's military intelligence, retiring from the army as a major general in 1962. Following the 1967 Six-Day War he returned to uniformed duty as military commander of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

As Israel's chief delegate to the United Nations from 1975-78, he tore to shreds a copy of the General Assembly resolution defining Zionism as "a form of racism and racial discrimination," calling it an "infamous act." After serving two years as a Labor member of the Knesset, he became Israel's sixth president in 1983, a position in which he served for the next decade. He was criticized for being the first Israeli president to visit West Germany and for his pardoning of Shin Bet chief Avraham Shalom and seven Shin Bet operatives who had summarily executed Palestinian militants in the 1980s.

Sheikh Ali Sabah al-Salem al-Sabah, a member of Kuwait's royal family and a former defense minister, died April 13 in London following a heart attack, at the age of 49. The son of a former emir and brother of the current defense minister, he served as defense minister after the Gulf war and later became interior minister.

Laurence Mitchelmore, former commissioner general of UNRWA, died April 10 in a Washington, DC hospital of a heart ailment at the age of 88. A native of Philadelphia and graduate of UCLA, he earned a doctorate in political science from Harvard University and moved to Washington during World War II to work for the Bureau of the Budget. He began working with the U.N. finance department in 1946, later serving as senior director of the technical assistance board and as U.N. personnel director. He became UNRWA commissioner general in 1965, stationed in Beirut, where he served for seven years before retiring in 1972.

Alpaslan Turkes, a conservative anti-communist who led Turkey's Nationalist Action Party, died April 4 after a heart attack and stroke in Ankara at the age of 80. During the 1970s, violent street clashes between his right-wing followers and leftists led to a military coup in 1980. He was under arrest for nearly five years, before returning to parliament in 1991.

Syed Amjad Ali, Pakistan's former ambassador to the U.S., died March 5 at the age of 90 in Lahore. After serving in Washington from 1953 to 1955, he became Pakistan's minister of finance, making economic planning a priority, then served as his country's ambassador to the United Nations until 1994.

Adele Ritchie Porter, an artist and the wife of former U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Dwight Porter, died Feb. 5 at her home in Silver Spring, MD of emphysema at the age of 79. Born in New York, she graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in fine arts, and worked as a commercial artist in New York and Washington prior to her marriage. She accompanied her husband to foreign assignments in Frankfurt, Bonn, London, Vienna and Lebanon, and was commended by the American Association of Foreign Service Women for designing the logo for their annual Book Fair. In addition to her husband, she is survived by three daughters, three sons, and 11 grandchildren.

Margaret Alexander, an expert in North African archeology, died Dec. 19, 1996 in Iowa, shortly after returning from Carthage. She first went to Tunisia in 1948 to conduct doctoral research on tombstone mosaics of the Christian era, returning 20 years later to participate in the compilation of a corpus of mosaics in Tunisia. She was vice president of the International Association for the Study of Mosaics and president of the International Committee for the Preservation of Mosaics, and in 1994 was awarded the "Order of Cultural Merit," Tunisia's highest cultural honor.