Timeline
Timeline: Refugees Who Became Diplomats
Arrivals, and what came after.
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1938 | Henry Kissinger's family flees Nazi Germany. Richard Schifter arrives alone from Vienna. |
| 1942 | Felix Rohatyn's family reaches the United States after escaping occupied France. |
| 1939 | George Jaeger leaves Vienna on the Kindertransport. John Gunther Dean's family reaches the United States from Breslau. George Muller arrives from Austria. |
| 1940 | Karl Mautner reaches New York by way of Budapest. |
| 1941 | George Landau arrives after three years in Colombia. |
| 1944 | Helmut Sonnenfeldt arrives as a refugee. Ints Siliņš and his mother flee Soviet-occupied Latvia. |
| 1948 | Madeleine Albright's family arrives from Czechoslovakia on November 11. The Displaced Persons Act is signed. |
| 1949 | Ints Siliņš and Alexander Akalovsky arrive as displaced persons. |
| 1951 | Rudolf Perina's family arrives after years as refugees in Switzerland and Morocco. |
| 1957 | Tibor Nagy arrives from Hungary as a political refugee. |
| 1959 | Alberto Fernandez arrives from Cuba. |
| 1960 | José Sorzano arrives from Havana. |
| 1960 to 1962 | Operation Pedro Pan. Eduardo Aguirre arrives in 1961 and Hugo Llorens in 1962. Lino Gutiérrez's family arrives by way of Colombia. |
| 1973 | Henry Kissinger becomes Secretary of State. |
| 1975 | Saigon, Phnom Penh, and Vientiane fall. Anne Pham reaches Fort Chaffee. Hoa Tran passes through Guam and Wake Island. |
| 1975 (April) | Ambassador John Gunther Dean, himself a former refugee, leads the evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh. |
| 1976 | Sichan Siv arrives from a Thai refugee camp. Herro Mustafa's family arrives from Iraq. |
| 1979 | Ellie Cohanim's family flees the Iranian revolution. |
| 1980 | The Refugee Act is signed on March 17. |
| 1982 | Martina Strong's family escapes Czechoslovakia. Tony Hornik-Tran leaves Vietnam by boat. |
| 1987 | Mustafa Popal's family arrives from Afghanistan. Henry Grunwald is named U.S. Ambassador to Austria, the country he fled. |
| 1989 | Timothy Eydelnant's family arrives in Minnesota from Minsk. |
| 1990 | Anya Brunson's family arrives from Minsk. |
| 1992 | Ints Siliņš becomes the first U.S. Ambassador to Latvia; Roman Popadiuk the first to Ukraine. |
| 1994 | Hamse Warfa arrives from Kenyan refugee camps. |
| 1997 | Madeleine Albright becomes Secretary of State. |
| 1999 | Sulaiman Toghral's family leaves Taliban-ruled Afghanistan for Virginia. |
| 2001 | Gai Nyok arrives from a Kenyan refugee camp. Sichan Siv becomes an ambassador at the UN. |
| 2003 | Mustafa Popal joins the Foreign Service. Lino Gutiérrez becomes Ambassador to Argentina. |
| 2015 | Gai Nyok is sworn in as a Foreign Service Officer. |
| 2019 | Herro Mustafa becomes Ambassador to Bulgaria. |
| 2021 | Mustafa Popal works the Kabul evacuation. |
| 2023 | Martina Strong becomes Ambassador to the UAE; Herro Mustafa becomes Ambassador to Egypt. |