Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, August/September 2017, pp. 71-72

Obituaries

Compiled by Nathaniel Bailey

Vincent T. Larsen, 87, died March 26 in Billings, MT of cancer. His father taught at Tougaloo College, a well-known historically black school near Jackson, MS. Vince couldn’t understand why once he and his friends left campus they couldn’t go to the same theaters and ice cream parlors. That special childhood fed a passion to combat intolerance and racism which stayed with him for the rest of his life. 

After graduating from Texas Tech in 1956 with a BS in petroleum geology, he  joined the Coast Guard, then worked for Phillips Petroleum and later became a consulting geologist. From 1972 to 1975 he lived in Jakarta, working for Independent Indonesian American Petroleum Company (IIAPCO), and making life-long friends with Muslim co-workers. Through talking with friends and paying close attention to international news, Larsen became convinced the U.S. was biased and even racist when it came to its Middle East policy. 

He married his wife, Louise, in 1977, and they continued traveling together, meeting people and learning about other faiths, cultures and customs. In 1990, when the couple went back to Jakarta, they were disturbed to discover many Indonesians no longer loved Americans. In fact, Vince said, in one young man’s glare he recognized the same pure hatred that some white people had shown his parents when they were teaching at Tougaloo. Vince asked a friend what had happened, and he explained, “It’s your country’s support for Israel. You talk peace but you give guns.”

An ARAMCO friend gave the Larsens a copy of the Washington Report and soon they were hooked, reading books mentioned in the magazine, and generously supporting this publication. Vince wrote earnest, thought-provoking letters to the Billings Gazette—some of which were published. Every time he wrote a letter calling for civil and human rights for Palestinians he got hate mail and phone calls accusing him of being anti-Semitic.

“Injustice bothers me,” he told the Washington Report, in one of many phone calls we sorely miss today. “I remember having the hell beat out of me because of what my dad did. Hate spreads from father to son. But so does love. My father’s greatest gift to me was raising me in Tougaloo.” 

After his death, Vince’s friend Ed Kemmick wrote about the Larsens’ gifts of acres of land to Montana’s park service, and how they helped support at least one student a year at more than 10 or 12 different colleges. “Vince knew so much about the world and both its joys and its injustices, and he aimed to make them right,” Kemmick wrote. 

As he planned his funeral, Vince asked his minister to include the following thought, a homework assignment from an “eager student” of the world: “Walk outside in the dark of the night and look up at the sky. Note the countless stars and realize how fortunate you really are to be alive in such a vast universe. Do something about the world that we live in. Give thanks and appreciate the gift of life that has been given to you. Do something for others every day and show your gratitude. Work for peace, it is so simple, just be kind and respectful of others.”

That life lesson is yet another lasting gift from Vince Larsen.

—Delinda C. Hanley

Sara Ehrman, 98, died June 3 in Washington, DC of endocarditis. Best known for her ties with the Clinton family, she was born on Staten Island, NY, as the youngest child and only daughter of Hungarian Jewish immigrants. Her parents’ communist sympathies would later inspire her left-leaning politics. In the 1930s she joined the Labor Zionist Youth movement. She moved to Northern Virginia after the end of World War II and worked as a legislative assistant to several Democrats on Capitol Hill. It was in this capacity that she met future President Bill Clinton. In 1974, Ehrman offered to drive a young Hillary Rodham to Fayetteville, AR so she could be with her boyfriend, Clinton. During the two-day trip Ehrman tried to talk Hillary out of her relationship with Clinton, as she saw more potential for Hillary than she thought Clinton could offer in Arkansas. 

Ehrman maintained her friendship with the Clintons over the years, moving to Little Rock in 1992 to lead Jewish outreach for Clinton’s presidential campaign. After he was elected, she became an adviser to the president, with a particular focus on the Middle East. She became deeply disillusioned with AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobby group she had previously helped to expand as political director in the early 1980s, and spent decades pushing for a two-state solution, working for organizations such as Americans for Peace Now and J Street. 

Dr. Omar S. Alfi, 89, a pillar of the Islamic Center of Southern California, died June 4 in Los Angeles. He began his medical career as a pediatrician in Cairo, Egypt after graduating from medical school at Cairo University. After practicing medicine in Egypt and Kuwait, Dr. Alfi and his family immigrated to the U.S. in 1970, and he joined the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles (CHLA) as head of the Division of Medical Genetics. There he established a pre-natal genetics counseling clinic and identified a rare chromosomal anomaly known as Monosomy 9P, or Alfi Syndrome. Dr. Alfi founded Alfigen, Inc./The Genetics Institute in 1981 to provide genetic testing and clinical services locally and abroad. After he retired he focused his research on developing stem cell therapy, hoping to develop a better treatment for Hepatitis C, an illness highly prevalent in Egypt

Starting in the 1970s, Dr. and Mrs. Alfi helped the Islamic Center of Southern California grow to become the prominent  West Coast mosque it is today. They were involved in the first Muslim-Catholic dialogue in Los Angeles, before the Interfaith Council of Southern California came into existance. The Alfis founded the New Horizon K-12 school system in the 1990s, which now has four campuses. In the 2000s they established an Islamic Law chair at UCLA Law School and co-founded Bayan Claremont at Claremont College. Dr. Alfi was a Renaissance man who leaves behind an inspiring legacy. He is survived by his wife of 62 years, Azmeralda, their 3 children, 11 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren.

—Samir and Pat Twair

Adnan Khashoggi, 81, died June 6 in London, where he was undergoing treatment for Parkinson’s disease. Known as an extravagant Saudi arms trader who became immensely wealthy in the 1970s and 1980s, he was born in the holy city of Mecca, where his father, despite being of Turkish descent, was the court doctor to King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud. Khashoggi attended Victoria College in Alexandria, Egypt, then enrolled at what was then Chico State College in California. Soon afterward, he brokered his first major deal, selling $3 million worth of trucks to Egypt and earning a $150,000 commission. Khashoggi never returned to finish his college degree.

Over the years, Khashoggi made deals with a who’s who list of global arms traders, such as Northrop, Lockheed Martin, Grumman, Chrysler, Fiat, the Westland helicopter company, Rolls-Royce and Raytheon. Although he had several encounters with the law, he was never convicted of a crime, even though he was involved in many of his era’s highest profile scandals, including the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scheme during the Reagan administration.  

Tina (née Thomas) Bruder, 91, died June 10 in Alexandria, VA after a brief illness. Daughter of a U.S. Marine, she attended 12 schools before graduating from Hollins College and marrying Maj. Joseph Andrew Bruder, USMC. After many overseas posts, now-Colonel Bruder served as the defense attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon from 1967 to 1970, returning to Beirut in 1973. After settling in Alexandria, VA a few years later, Tina Bruder studied art history at George Washington University and fine arts at Northern Virginia Community College. She was a registered copyist at the National Gallery of Art and a member of Independent Visions, a group of women artists. Well into her late 80s, Bruder hosted gatherings of friends first made in Beirut, and braved heat and snowstorms to attend openings of fellow artists in DC. She is survived by five children.

—Delinda C. Hanley

David Fromkin, 84, died June 11 in Manhattan of heart failure. Born in Milwaukee, he earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago and later graduated from the University of Chicago Law School. He first worked as a lawyer and investor, before becoming a published author and professor. His groundbreaking 1989 book on the Middle East, A Peace to End All Peace, traced the creation of unsustainable nation states through artificial mapmaking by Western powers following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I and the end of European colonization. Fromkin concluded that self-serving cartographers had underestimated the local populations’ enduring faith in Islam and their local communities, as well as their lingering resentment of Western imperialism and colonization. He often advocated for constraints on American military intervention overseas and against Western imperialism. 

In 1994, Fromkin joined Boston University, where he was the director of the Center for International Relations and was the founding director of the Fredrick S. Pardee Center of the Long-Range Future from 2000-2007. The author of seven books, he retired from Boston University as professor emeritus in 2013.  

Fred Rotondaro, 78, died June 26 at his home in Shady Side, MD after a battle with brain cancer. Born in Pittston, PA, he was a leader of the Italian-American community who was praised for providing Arab Americans political access in the 1970s and 1980s, at a time when many in Washington refused to work with the Arab community. He was instrumental in teaching Arab-American leaders the nuts and bolts of ethnic politics in the United States. After receiving his bachelor’s degree from the University of Scranton and his Master’s Degree at Creighton University, he went on to earn a Ph.D. in American Studies from New York University. After marrying and moving to Washington, DC, he became communications director of the National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs, and later served as executive director of the National Italian American Foundation, remaining in that position for 22 years. After his retirement, he became a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, chair of Catholics In Alliance for the Common Good, and treasurer of the Italian American Democratic Leadership Council.