Ambassador Lucius Durham Battle (1918-2008)

By Andrew I. Killgore


	Luke Battle (Courtesy NCUSAR).

THE WASHINGTON area lost perhaps its most distinguished “Middle East hand” with the death of Ambassador Lucius D. Battle on May 13. Lucius (Luke) was not, as he was often thought to be, an Arabist, but his connection with the Middle East was strong enough that other Middle East hands proudly claimed him as one of their own.

From 1949 to 1953, Lucius Battle became known as Secretary of State Dean Acheson’s right-hand man. Acheson reportedly once said that Battle was indispensable because he had “nerves of steel, a sense of purpose and a Southern accent.” Obviously highly respected by Acheson, the secretary of state might well have added that Battle was also highly intelligent, with an easy charm that would make him fit in well with many and varied groups.

Born in Dawson, Georgia, Luke won bachelor of arts and law degrees from the University of Florida. From 1943 to 1946 he served as a naval officer in the Pacific. After the war he joined the U.S. Foreign Service, becoming chief of the political sector of the United States Embassy in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1953 and 1954.

Luke Battle left the State Department to become vice president of Colonial Williamsburg, the Rockefeller-financed project to restore the old capital city of Virginia. In 1961 he returned to the Department of State to become special assistant to fellow Georgian Secretary of State Dean Rusk. His mission was to “shake things up” at a Department regarded by then-President John F. Kennedy as too slow and tradition bound. At State, Battle created the operations center to follow hour-to-hour developments around the world, and thus be able to alert concerned officials in times of crisis.

Ambassador Battle twice served as assistant secretary of state, first as assistant secretary for educational and cultural affairs from 1962 to 1964, then in 1967 and 1968 as assistant secretary for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs. In between (1964-1967) he was the President Lyndon Johnson-appointed ambassador to the United Arab Republic, the short-lived union between Egypt and Syria.

Shortly after Luke arrived in Cairo, anti-American demonstrators attacked and burned much of the American Embassy. Ambassador Battle and the Embassy’s Marine guards battled the blaze while waiting for the fire trucks to arrive. In his sharply worded official protest, he made clear that the late arrival of the trucks was deliberately caused by the Egyptian government.

In 1968 Battle resigned from the State Department to become vice president of the Communications Satellite Corporation. Lucius was active in the Middle East Institute and other organizations working for peace in the Middle East. From 1995 until recently he was chairman of the advisory board of the National Council on U.S.- Arab Relations, headed by Dr. John Duke Anthony.

Ambassador Battle’s wife, Betty, died in 2004. He is survived by two sons, John, of Concord, MA, and Thomas of Belmont, MA; two daughters, Lynne of Bethesda, MD, and Laura, of Rhinebeck, NY; and eight grandchildren.

Andrew I. Killgore is publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.