Robert Dillon
United States Ambassador to Lebanon
In office
June 26, 1981 – October 11, 1983
PresidentJimmy Carter
Ronald Reagan
Preceded byJohn Gunther Dean
Succeeded byReginald Bartholomew
Personal details
Born (1929-01-07) January 7, 1929
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
SpouseCaroline Sue Dillon (m. 1951; died 2013)
Alma materDuke University
Military service
Allegiance United States of America
Branch/service United States Army
Years of service1947–1948

Robert Sherwood Dillon (born January 7, 1929) was the United States Ambassador to Lebanon from 1981 to 1983.[1] He was born in 1929 in Chicago and attended Duke University, graduating in 1951.

Dillon served in the US army for eighteen months before being discharged and continuing his education at Duke University.[2] After receiving his B.A. in English Literature in 1951, he served as a CIA intelligence officer with Chinese Nationalist irregular forces. Following his time in the CIA, he joined the Foreign Service. Dillon spent more than 30 years in the Foreign Service with assignments including Venezuela, Turkey, Malaysia, Egypt, Lebanon. He served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Malaysia, Turkey and Egypt and oversaw the negotiations and security of hostages during The Kuala Lumpur Hostage Crisis.[3] Dillon served as US Ambassador to Lebanon for two years, surviving the 1983 United States embassy bombing, before retiring from the foreign service in 1983 with the rank of Career Minister.

After his time in the Foreign Service, Dillon joined the United Nations as Assistant Secretary General and later served for five years as Deputy Commissioner General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. In 1988, Dillon became President and CEO of the non-profit, America-Mideast Education and Training Services, Inc., which he left in 1995. From 1994-1995, Dillon worked for the UN as Special Humanitarian Envoy for Rwanda and Burundi. After which he worked as for six months with the Department of State.[4] Dillon Currently resides in Arlington Virginia and has authored a memoir and biography of his father, Dale Crowell Dillon.[5]

Books

  • One of the Very Best Men by Robert Sherwood Dillon (Five and Ten Press, March 2004) ISBN 1-89-237919-8 (Memoir)
  • An American Soldier in World War I by Robert Sherwood Dillon (Five and Ten Press, June 2005) ISBN 1-89-237923-6 (Biography of Dale Crowell Dillon)

References

  1. ↑ "U.S. Ambassador Accepts Job With U.N." Gadsden Times. AP. 21 September 1983. p. A2. Retrieved 11 August 2010.
  2. ↑ "AMBASSADOR ROBERT S. DILLON" (PDF) (Interview). Interviewed by Kennedy, Charles Stuart. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. 17 May 1990. p. 4. Retrieved 2023-06-30. I started my college career in 1946 at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. After my freshman year, I went into the Army for eighteen months. After discharge, I decided not to continue at W&L--it was an all male school at the time--and transferred to Duke University, joining my future wife, from whence I graduated in 1951.
  3. ↑ "Terror on the 9th Floor — the Kuala Lumpur Hostage Crisis".
  4. ↑ "The American Academy of Diplomacy - Pezzullo". Archived from the original on 2014-10-22. Retrieved 2014-12-14.
  5. ↑ "Robert Sherwood Dillon".
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