James W. Spain

James William Spain (July 22, 1926 – January 2, 2008) was in the US Foreign Service with postings in Karachi, Islamabad, Istanbul, Ankara, Dar Es Salaam, and Colombo and four ambassadorships in Tanzania, Turkey, the United Nations (as deputy permanent representative), and Sri Lanka.

His son is Patrick Spain, founder of Hoover's and HighBeam Research.

Ambassador Spain was born in 1926 in Chicago, Illinois, where he attended St Brendan's Parochial School and Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary where his classmates included priest/author Andrew Greeley and “Vatican Banker” Paul Marcinkus. He received a master's degree from the University of Chicago and a PhD from Columbia University.

Ambassador Spain served in World War II, for a time serving on General Douglas MacArthur's staff as a photographer in occupied Japan. He entered the Foreign Service in 1951, and spent the entirety of his career in government service. His assignments took him to Pakistan, Turkey, Tanzania, the UN, and Sri Lanka.

His first post was as Vice Consul in Karachi in 1951. Following that he returned the U.S. where he lived, mostly in Washington, DC, until 1969. He was appointed as Chargé d'Affaires to Pakistan in 1969, Consul General in Istanbul from 1970–1972, Deputy Chief of Mission in Ankara (1972–1974), Ambassador to Tanzania (1975–1979) and Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations under Andrew Young briefly in 1979, Ambassador to Turkey from 1980–1981, and finally as Ambassador to Sri Lanka from 1985 - 1988. He retired a Career Minister in the Foreign Service and remained in Sri Lanka until 2006, when he returned to the United States, settling in Wilmington, NC.

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