Georgiana Stevens

By Andrew I. Killgore

She is not a rock star or a Hollywood actress, instantly recognizable to all by her first name—like Madonna, Marilyn, or Lucy. Yet mention "Georgiana" to old Middle East hands and they will probably know you are referring to a journalist who has interpreted that ever-changing area for Americans since shortly after World War II. Georgiana is Mrs. Harley C. Stevens, a San Francisco writer/philanthropist with an aristocrat's disdain for personal publicity.

Born in the Pacific Northwest, Georgiana was brought up with the belief that those endowed with outstanding talents have special obligations to society. After high school in Portland, Oregon, she graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and married San Francisco-based lawyer Harley C. Stevens, a childhood friend, also originally from Oregon.

Frequent Trips to the Middle East

Harley Stevens had become adept in an esoteric area of law—negotiations for oil and gas concessions—and Georgiana often accompanied him on his trips to the Middle East. Like so many other imaginative Americans before and since, she became increasingly fascinated with the tangle of peoples, cultures, and religions in that cradle of our civilization. She began to study the area, and was soon recognized as a qualified area analyst.

Her first challenging assignment came from the US government: Helping to write a history of World War II Middle East operations of the Office of Strategic Services, precursor of the Central Intelligence Agency. OSS Middle East operations may have seemed non-controversial when Georgiana began working on the project in 1944 and 1945, but as the war wound down, the history she was helping to write became increasingly involved in US domestic politics. American politicians were already trying to use the Palestine problem to their own advantage, especially in New York.

A Quarter-Century of Mideast Reporting

When OSS Director General William J. "Wild Bill" Donovan sought a US Senate seat from that state in 1946 chances for immediate publication of the history ended. Donovan lost his electoral bid, and the history as originally written was never published. By the time a more publicly acceptable version of OSS Middle East operations was issued several years later, Georgiana had learned a great deal not only about the Middle East, but also about its US domestic ramifications.

Beginning in 1947, and for the next 25 years, she was Middle East correspondent of the Atlantic Monthly, long before that once-prestigious US magazine was taken over by real estate tycoon Mortimer Zuckerman, a zealous supporter of Israel. Researched on the ground in the Middle East, and through interviews with well-informed US officials, Georgiana's articles were models of informative Middle East journalism. Foreign Service Officers specializing in the Middle East were among her most admiring readers.

In the 1960s, Georgiana Stevens wrote and/or edited three books: Egypt, Yesterday and Today (a textbook); Jordan River Partition; and The United States and the Middle East. Still deeply involved in area affairs, Georgiana is now a board member and a driving force in the Musa Alami Foundation of Jericho (a Palestinian "Boy's Town"); the Near East Foundation in New York; the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC; and the International Peace Academy. She is also a member of the order of St. John of Jerusalem and of Berkeley Fellows.

Georgiana's Style Evident at Board Meetings

To support such institutions, Georgiana can display a core of iron. Because she is passionately devoted to opening up communication and educational opportunities between the Middle East and the United States, she drives quickly to the heart of problems. When board meetings she attends begin to meanders, Georgiana's comments usually put discussions firmly back on the Middle East track.

In doing so, she has endeared herself to a generation of leaders who share her commitment to informed and decisive action. She is as quick to reach for her checkbook as she is to press for a decision. She provides tens of thousands of dollars annually to Middle Eastern educational institutions, including the American University of Beirut, the American University in Cairo, Bir Zeit University in the occupied West Bank, and the Arab Development Society, also in the occupied West Bank.

Georgiana will take off for the Middle East at her own expense and at a moment's notice if an institution she helps support needs her presence. If money is the problem, she has not only her own resources but friends to help causes in which she believes. If the need is for time, attention, or sound advice, she becomes, in the words of an admiring friend, a "great natural resource." Georgiana herself will accept no such elaborate praise. Instead, she summarizes her style, and a lifetime of service, with a characteristically modest sentence: "I try to help."