James W. Spain: He felt at home in Lanka

The son of an South Side Irish immigrant, James W. Spain left Chicago after college for a globe-trotting career as a diplomat that included ambassadorships in Africa and Asia.

Mr. Spain, 81, a longtime foreign diplomat, formerly of Chicago, died on Wednesday in Wilmington, North Carolina, his son William said. He had suffered from various ailments, including kidney failure, his son said.

After a tenure with the State Department in Washington, Spain was posted to Pakistan as charge d’affaires in 1969. He then held ambassadorships in Africa and Asia, representing U.S. interests in Tanzania from 1975 to 1979, in Turkey from 1980 to 1981 and in Sri Lanka from 1985 to 1988.

“He was very intelligent, an outgoing, social guy,” said Edward Marks, a retired foreign service officer who worked with Spain in Africa and later was his deputy chief of mission in Sri Lanka. A man of definite opinions and a pronounced independent streak, Spain was unafraid to speak his mind through back-channel cables to Washington.

When orders from above were issued, though, he carried out his duties with the aplomb of a career diplomat, Marks said.

“Jim was a first-rate professional diplomat,” Marks said. “He believed in the responsibility of a public servant and the discipline that goes with that.” Spain summed up his foreign service career in a 1998 memoir, “In Those Days: A Diplomat Remembers.”

He also wrote a series of mysteries about a character named Dodo Dillon. Spain grew up near Ogden Park in Englewood and attended St. Brendan’s parish school and Quigley Seminary.

He served in the Army as a photographer on Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s staff, before earning a master’s degree in political science from the University of Chicago, his son said.

Spain’s first job with the State Department was as vice consul in Pakistan in 1951. After returning to the U.S., he taught and earned a doctoral degree from Columbia University, and worked briefly as an analyst with the Central Intelligence Agency and in the State Department before his second posting to Pakistan.

After he retired, he remained in Sri Lanka until moving to North Carolina three years ago.

His youth in Chicago during the latter days of the Capone era was never far from his mind and provided a wealth of stories on long nights in faraway embassies. “He always talked about Chicago,” Marks said.

Spain’s wife, Edith, died in 1983. He is survived by two sons, Patrick and Stephen and five grandchildren.

Services have been held.

Chicago Tribune