Alvin Philip Adams Jr. (August 29, 1942 – October 10, 2015) was an American diplomat.

Biography

Born in New York City, he was one of three children born to Elizabeth Miller, daughter of

Nathan L. Miller Nathan Lewis Miller (October 10, 1868 – June 26, 1953) was an American lawyer and politician who was Governor of New York from 1921 to 1922. Early life and education Nathan Miller was born on October 10, 1868, the son of Samuel Miller, a te ...

, and Alvin P. Adams Sr. His father was a Western Airlines executive. His mother owned a bookstore. The younger Adams attended Yale, like his father, and received a J.D. from Vanderbilt University Law School. Adams joined the Foreign Service in 1967 and was appointed as the

United States Ambassador to Djibouti This is a list of ambassadors from the United States to the Republic of Djibouti. The area on the Horn of Africa on which Djibouti is situated had been under French control since 1885 as part of the protectorate of French Somaliland. The area w ...

in 1983 where he served until 1985. His next ambassadorship was to

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...

, where he convinced

Prosper Avril Matthieu Prosper Avril (born December 12, 1937) is a Haitian political figure who was President of Haiti from 1988 to 1990. A trusted member of François Duvalier's Presidential Guard and adviser to Jean-Claude Duvalier, Lt. Gen. Avril led the Se ...

to relinquish power in a late night conversation held in March 1990. In 1992, Adams was named ambassador to Peru, serving in that post until his retirement from the Foreign Service in 1996.Alt URL
/ref> Adams also worked in Washington, D.C., for what became the Bureau of Counterterrorism before his Haiti stint and was posted in Vietnam prior to all ambassadorial assignments. There, he met his wife, Mai-Anh Nguyen. Before their divorce, they had two sons, Lex and Tung Thanh, who died in the 1989

USS Iowa turret explosion On 19 April 1989, an explosion occurred within the Number Two 16-inch gun turret of the United States Navy battleship during a fleet exercise in the Caribbean Sea near Puerto Rico. The explosion in the center gun room killed 47 of the turret's ...

. Adams lived in Buenos Aires and Honolulu, then moved to Portland, Oregon in 2011, where he died on October 10, 2015, aged 73.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Adams, Alvin P. 1942 births 2015 deaths Diplomats from New York City Yale University alumni Vanderbilt University Law School alumni Ambassadors of the United States to Djibouti Ambassadors of the United States to Haiti Ambassadors of the United States to Peru People from Portland, Oregon American expatriates in Argentina American expatriates in Vietnam United States Foreign Service personnel 20th-century American diplomats