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Julianne Simpson Thomas
Julianne Simpson Thomas, a U.S. Department of State attorney whose portfolio included international exchange programs that strengthen ties between citizens of the United States and other countries, died of cancer on April 13 at her home in Washington. She was 71. Ms. Simpson joined the Department in 1999, following nine years with the legal staff of the former United States Information Agency and previous work in private practice in Washington. Her specialty in the Office of the Legal Adviser was providing counsel on the Exchange Visitor Program, which each year admits more than 300,000 foreign citizens to participate in educational, cultural and professional programs, learn about American life and then return home to build their countries and, ideally, return the friendship. She also focused on outbound programs that send 15,000 Americans to 170 foreign countries each year for the similar purpose of using the face-to-face sharing of ideas to break down barriers and increase mutual understanding between nations. The public-diplomacy programs on which Ms. Simpson advised over three decades as a civil servant, rooted in laws including the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 and Fulbright-Hays Act of 1961, form the legal and moral foundation of the post-World War II U.S. foreign policy premised on building bridges to the rest of the world. Ms. Simpson had a reputation for being “truly dedicated to disability issues -- not just ensuring there wasn’t discrimination in programs, but also trying to expand exchanges and other opportunities for people with disabilities,” said a colleague. She was also “wonderfully committed to the welfare of young people” in the global youth exchanges she supported in her work with the Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Ms. Simpson’s direct interest in diverse cultures abroad began after her graduation from the University of Minnesota in 1971, when she was hired as an English teacher in public schools in Australia. From that base, she visited the Soviet Union and more than 20 countries in Asia and the Middle East in the early 1970s, traveling mostly in programs organized by the International Student House in Sydney that was her residence. She regularly reported on her adventures by collect phone calls on set dates with preordained time limits to her parents in her hometown of Rumson, N.J. On returning to the United States, Ms. Simpson worked on a statistics project at the Department of Education, living in Washington’s International Student House, and at the State University of New York at Albany, where she was a dormitory adviser. She was then hired to coordinate foreign-student affairs at Oklahoma State University, putting her in charge of 4,000 undergraduates from abroad. The assignment took on an added challenge when the Islamic Revolution broke out in Iran in 1978-1979, stranding a large number of Iranian students in her domain, many of whose parents were aligned with the deposed Reza Shah Pahlavi. Ms. Simpson made a career change in the early 1980s by pursuing a law degree from the University of Oklahoma College of Law. She returned to Washington in 1986 to begin her legal career, driving 1,500 miles from Norman over two days in her 1967 Camaro as the second car in a two-car motorcade led by a DC-bound classmate who knew the directions but not necessarily the speed limits. She then put the vintage Chevy on the market and hardly ever drove again. Ms. Simpson loved to walk near her residence at Dupont Circle and on trails at her second home close to Shenandoah National Park in Rappahannock County, Va. A denizen of the Dupont Circle farmer’s market and victim of chronic chemical sensitivity, she was an avid reader and activist about organic food production and consumption and the impact of everyday chemicals on human health. Her proudest achievement was to shepherd her longtime live-in mother, Helen Simpson, through a largely healthy closing chapter of life until her death at 96. The care included giving public visibility for the first time to Helen’s stashed-away portfolio of watercolors and portrait sketches of Hollywood starlets from the 1920s and 1930s. The Iona House Wellness & Arts Center in Washington sponsored an exhibit of the works. Ms. Simpson was married for 33 years to Richard G. Thomas, whom she met at a tennis party in suburban Washington. She is survived by her husband and a sister, Willa (Mrs. Robert) Hawk of Pleasant Hill, Calif.April 18, 1949 - April 13, 202104/18/194904/13/2021
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Julianne Simpson Thomas
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