Richard F. Stolz, Jr. ’49 died June 9, 2012.
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My father, Richard F. “Dick” Stolz Jr., of Williamsburg, Va., died on June 9, 2012, from complications following a fall at his home. He was 86.

Dick came to Amherst in the summer of 1943 as a member of the Class of 1947, after graduating from Summit (N.J.) High School. He left Amherst that fall to join the U.S. Army, was sent to France in 1944 as an infantryman, serving in eastern France and the Rhineland. He returned to Amherst in 1946 to graduate in 1949.

After marrying my mother, Betty Jane Elder, of Hopewell, Va., in 1950, Dick began a long career as an officer with the Central Intelligence Agency. He served throughout Europe including Italy, Turkey, Bulgaria, Russia, Yugoslavia, Germany and Great Britain. Proficient with languages, he learned, among others, Bulgarian, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, French and Italian.

Dick retired from the CIA in 1981 and worked as an independent international security consultant. In 1987, he was asked to return to the CIA by then director of Central Intelligence (and Amherst graduate) William Webster ’45 to lead the CIA’s clandestine service. He served in that capacity until his second retirement in 1990. He was twice awarded the Distinguished Intelligence Medal, the agency’s highest honor. In 1991, President George H.W. Bush presented him in the Oval Office with the National Security Medal for distinguished achievement in the field of intelligence. (Obituaries in the New York Times and Washington Post, available online, offer more detail on Dick’s career.)

Dick and Betty moved to Williamsburg, Va., in 1997, where Dick maintained several consulting projects, became active in an adult education program associated with the College of William and Mary and served on advisory boards.

Dick’s survivors include Betty, sons Richard ’77 and Robert ’82, daughter Sarah, their spouses and seven grandchildren.

—Richard Stolz ’77



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