Phil, a retired Foreign Service officer and former reporter for The Washington Post, died Jan. 9, 2015, of cancer. He was born on a military base in San Francisco Dec. 1, 1934. Phil lived with his parents in the Philippines before World War II and then in Washington state and Pennsylvania.
He graduated from Princeton in 1956 with highest honors in English. After military service, he was briefly a general assignment reporter for The Washington Post. After joining the State Department in 1961, Phil served in Laos, the Congo, Jordan, Vietnam, and twice in Thailand. He also served the former U.S. Information Service, the Defense Department, and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. He was awarded meritorious or superior service awards from the State Department and two of these agencies.
Following Phil’s retirement, the king of Thailand presented him with the Order of the White Elephant for his service in improving relations between the United States and Thailand. In Washington, Phil was a member of a foreign-affairs group, the Diplomatic and Consular Officers Retired (DACOR), and the Arlington Seniors Golf Club. There are no immediate survivors.