Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 2018, pp. 67
Compiled by Nathaniel Bailey
John H. Trattner, 86, died of cancer Oct. 6 in Rockville, Maryland. The career foreign service officer and author of many books was a State Department spokesman during the Iranian hostage crisis, the 444-day diplomatic standoff when 52 Americans were held hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran before their release in January 1981. Born in Richmond, Virginia, Trattner graduated from Yale University in 1952 and served in the U.S. Navy for three years. After working as a journalist and freelance reporter, he joined the U.S. Information Agency in 1963, and served in a variety of government agencies. He was the principal author of seven Prune Book reports detailing the qualifications and responsibilities required for the more than 3,000 top-level appointed positions a president must fill when taking office.
Elizabeth Stewart “Betsy” Mayfield, 76, died at her home in Ames, Iowa on Oct. 17, 2017 of lung cancer, although she had never smoked. Born in Gettysburg, PA to the Rev. Seth C. Morrow and Levinah Morrow, she attended the College of Wooster in Wooster, OH, then worked in New Jersey as an English teacher and in Washington, DC as a writer for Rep. Alphonzo Bell of Santa Monica, CA. After marrying Dr. John Mayfield in 1968, the couple relocated to Pasadena, CA, where John began postdoctoral research at the California Institute of Technology. In 1971 they moved to Pittsburgh, PA, where Betsy worked in university fund-raising at Carnegie Mellon University and where their two daughters, Katherine (Kate) and Margaret (Margie), were born. In 1977, the family moved to Ames, where Betsy embarked on a successful career with the Iowa State University (ISU) Foundation.
After many years at Iowa State, Betsy’s spirit of adventure took her to a job with the New York City headquarters of Lebanese American University, then called Beirut University College (BUC). Through her work and friendships with BUC alumnae and during visits to Lebanon, Israel and Palestine she became aware of the plight of the Palestinian people and became increasingly concerned and devoted to telling their story.
After a decade of commuting between New York and Ames, Betsy returned to Iowa full time in 1998, and concentrated her attention on nonviolent efforts on behalf of Palestinian equality and human rights. Fearless in her activism and fiercely protective of Palestinian young people she often referred to as "my kids," Betsy sought to make a difference. She produced films for the Jerusalem Fund in Washington, DC, and for Sabeel, the East Jerusalem-based center for liberation theology, worked with Arab students at ISU, and brought Palestinian students to study at ISU, all while assisting and encouraging dozens of other international students studying at ISU. She co-authored many early articles by Washington Report contributor Dr. Samah Jabar, now a psychiatrist in Ramallah (see p. 49).
Betsy also organized two film festivals: “Boundaries: The Holy Land,” in Des Moines in 2002 at the Fleur Theater, and her tour de force, “Palestine Unabridged: Films about Life within the Conflict,” at the Ames Public Library in 2003. “Palestine Unabridged” was dedicated to Rachel Corrie, the American college student, activist and diarist martyred by Israel in Rafah, Gaza, on March 16, 2003, whose parents and aunts are native Iowans. The series featured 13 films, mostly documentaries by Palestinian, Israeli, British and American filmmakers, on alternate Thursday evenings, and a public discussion forum on the intervening Thursdays at local restaurants and coffee houses. Zionist groups at the local, state and regional levels sought to prevent the film festival from opening by pressuring members of the city council and the library’s board of directors. When that failed, they mounted a campaign of harassment against the library director and staff, and again were unsuccessful. Ultimately, the publicity generated by those who sought to prevent the film series opening and then to force its closing increased public interest and facilitated both a wider public dialog about Palestinian human rights and an increased awareness of Zionist efforts to shape and limit public discussion.
Not long before her death, Betsy was visited by a minister who offered his prayers. Weak and ill, Betsy took him firmly by the arm, looked him straight in the eye and said, “Don’t pray. DO something!” No words could better express the legacy of unrelenting action she leaves behind. —Michael Gillespie
Howard Schaffer, 88, died Nov. 17 in Washington, DC of congestive heart failure. Born in New York, he studied American history and literature at Harvard University, and developed an interest in foreign policy while serving in the Army during the Korean War. He joined the foreign service in 1955, holding posts at embassies in India and Pakistan. Considered a leading South Asia specialist, including on the conflict in Kashmir, Schaffer was one of 29 diplomats who signed the 1971 “Blood Telegram,” a first-of-its-kind State Department dissent cable that criticized U.S. complicity in Pakistan’s brutal crackdown on East Pakistan, which soon after became the independent state of Bangladesh, and where Schaffer served as U.S. ambassador. He subsequently was director of studies at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy and wrote biographies of diplomats Chester Bowles and Ellsworth Bunker.
Shadia (Fatima Ahmed Kamal Shaker), 88, died on November 28, in Cairo, Egypt after suffering complications from a stroke. Shadia, born in Cairo in 1929, rose to prominence as an Egyptian actress and singer who captivated the Arab world during the golden age of Egyptian entertainment from the 1940s-1970s. Shadia’s style helped to define the entertainment scene in Egypt for decades, mostly through her hit singles sung with a distinctive Egyptian dialect of Arabic. In the 1990s, Shadia abruptly walked away from the entertainment industry, embracing a strict interpretation of Islam while living a life in near total seclusion.
