Holsey Handyside, who rose to the rank of United States ambassador in a 30-year career in the Foreign Service, died June 29, 2016, at the age of 88.
After Handyside completed his preparatory education in 1945, he served in the Army Air Corps. He then earned a bachelor’s degree from Amherst College in 1950. After a year in France as a Fulbright-Hays scholar, he enrolled at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton and earned a master’s degree in 1953.
In 1955, he joined the Foreign Service. Over the years, he was assigned to embassies in Cairo, Baghdad, Beirut, and Tripoli. President Gerald Ford appointed Handyside as U.S. ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, a position he also held under President Jimmy Carter.
Handyside retired in 1985. He had lived in the Middle East, worked at the State Department, and briefly was with the Department of Energy, working on U.S. relationships with the Middle East.
He was predeceased by a sister and a brother.
Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.