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From the President’s Desk Remembering Julia Taft, a Great Humanitarian We have lost one of America’s great humanitarians. Julia Vadala Taft, 65, died in March from colon cancer. Active and outspoken until the end, Julia was one of God’s instruments for doing good in our world. She was resourceful, outgoing and collegial. She used power for good and was full of faith. Born on Governors’ Island in New York Harbor, the daughter of a military doctor, Julia ended up in Loveland, Colo., and was educated at the University of Colorado in Boulder. A moderate Republican, she found herself in Washington, D.C., in the 1970s as an aide to Cabinet Secretary Elliot Richardson. After the fall of Saigon in 1975, at the ripe age of 32, Julia was tapped by President Ford to coordinate the U.S. interagency efforts to resettle those on whose side we had fought in the Vietnam War. In the space of five months 130,000 Vietnamese refugees were admitted to the United States and resettled throughout the country. At the end of her days, Julia railed publicly about the feeble American response for Iraqi refugees. If our country could do so much for so many so quickly back in 1975, why couldn’t we do so now? It was Julia who, on behalf of the Ford Administration, helped set up the public-private partnership for refugee resettlement that has served America so well and continues to this day. She was a strong believer in cooperation and collegiality. Why should the federal government try to receive the refugees all on its own when it could work with the states and with private voluntary agencies who represent cross-sections of American society? Each one had a role to play and gifts to bring and the whole was stronger than the sum of the parts. Even though public sentiment was initially very much against receiving the Vietnamese, their resettlement ended up being a great success and a proud chapter in American history. Julia went on to serve in other prominent positions in the humanitarian field. In the late 1980s, as head of the federal office of foreign disaster assistance, she brought aid to earthquake-ravaged Armenia when it was still part of the Soviet Union. In the 1990s, she headed up InterAction, the collation of American nongovernmental organizations active in foreign humanitarian work, helping to mobilize relief for Sarajevo in the Bosnian war. During the second Clinton administration, she served as assistant secretary of state for population, refugees, and migration, leading U.S. support for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, especially for those fleeing Kosovo. In the early part of this decade, she was a deputy at the U.N. Development Program, helping provide reconstruction assistance for Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. Amidst all of this she carried out her vocation as wife and mother in a strong marriage and loving family. Her widower is William Howard Taft IV, great-grandson of the 27th president and former deputy secretary of defense and State Department legal advisor. I was privileged to work in collaboration with Julia during her time at InterAction and the State Department. Twice I served under her as a nongovernmental organization member of the U.S. delegation to the annual UNHCR executive committee meetings in Geneva. I especially remember with gratitude our time together in 2000, when UNHCR was marking its 50th anniversary. When it came time for Julia to give the opening statement for the United States, she made sure to give me pride of place right alongside her. Together we visibly symbolized the American principle of a public-private partnership for refugees. Julia was an active member of the historic Pohick Episcopal Church in Lorton, Va. At her memorial service, her rector cited the judgment of the nations story from Matthew 25. He said that in all his years of ministry he had never had a member who lived that out as much as Julia. Yes, God used the hands of Julia Taft to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and welcome the stranger. Thanks be to God.
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