Themes
Refugees Who Became U.S. Ambassadors
Former refugees who led American embassies and missions.
Chiefs of mission
An ambassador is the President's personal representative to another country. A remarkable number of former refugees have held the title, some of them in the very countries their families had fled.
Profiles
Eduardo Aguirre Jr.Arrived alone from Cuba at fifteen through Operation Pedro Pan; later ambassador to Spain.Madeleine Korbel AlbrightTwice a refugee as a child, she became the first woman to serve as Secretary of State.John Gunther DeanA Jewish refugee from Breslau who became ambassador five times and led the 1975 evacuation of Phnom Penh.Alberto M. FernandezCame from Cuba as a refugee in 1959 and spent a career as a public diplomacy officer in the Middle East.Herro Mustafa GargA Kurdish girl from Erbil who spent two years in a refugee camp and became ambassador to Bulgaria and Egypt.Henry A. GrunwaldFled Vienna after the Anschluss and returned decades later as U.S. ambassador to Austria.Lino GutiérrezFled Cuba after the Bay of Pigs, waited fourteen months in Colombia, and became ambassador to Nicaragua and Argentina.George W. LandauLeft Vienna for Colombia in 1938, reached the United States in 1941, and became ambassador three times in South America.Hugo LlorensOne of the Operation Pedro Pan children flown out of Cuba alone, later ambassador to Honduras.Tibor P. Nagy Jr.A political refugee from Hungary who became an ambassador twice over and Assistant Secretary for African Affairs.Robert G. NeumannSurvived a Nazi concentration camp as a young man and later served as U.S. ambassador in three countries.Carlos PascualLeft Cuba at three on one of the last flights out; later U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and Mexico.Rudolf V. PerinaSmuggled across the Czechoslovak border as a child; later led U.S. missions across Europe.Roman PopadiukBorn in a postwar displaced persons camp to Ukrainian parents, he became the first U.S. ambassador to independent Ukraine.Felix RohatynA child refugee who fled the Nazis across three continents and returned to France as U.S. ambassador.Ints M. SiliņšEscaped Soviet-occupied Latvia as a toddler, grew up a displaced person, and became the first U.S. ambassador to free Latvia.Sichan SivSurvived Khmer Rouge labor camps, escaped on foot to Thailand, and rose to ambassador at the United Nations.José S. SorzanoFled communist Cuba in 1960 and became the deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.Herbert J. SpiroFled Hamburg with his family in 1938 and later served as U.S. ambassador in Central Africa.Martina Anna Tkadlec StrongEscaped Czechoslovakia on a family 'vacation,' waited in a camp near Belgrade, and became ambassador to the UAE.