Tull spent 33 years as a Foreign Service Officer with the Department of State, performing a range of assignments in Washington and overseas. She served three times as United States Chief of Mission; as permanent Charge d’Affaires in Laos; as Ambassador to Guyana in South America; and, in her final post, as Ambassador to Brunei in Southeast Asia. She retired in 1996.
Ambassador Tull was born in Runnemede, New Jersey, and worked in the private sector for ten years while attending Rutgers University at night in Camden. She had an interest in politics since her father was the mayor of Runnemede and, after seeing a “Women in the Foreign Service” article in Good Housekeeping, she passed the competitive examination to become a Foreign Service Officer in 1963.
She found satisfaction, to perhaps varying degrees, in all of her assignments.
In 1975 she was Deputy Principal Officer at the American Consulate General in Danang, Vietnam. When her boss was medically evacuated, she found herself in charge when Danang was about to be overrun by the invading North Vietnamese Army. She arranged evacuation of both American and Vietnamese staff and their families to Saigon where they were able to leave the country in the massive refugee outflux that marked the collapse of the non-communist government in the South. No one was left behind.
In Laos in 1983 she helped negotiate the first joint crash site excavation in Indochina to search for the remains of U.S. servicemen missing in action. After much sensitive but assertive diplomacy, the Laotian government began cooperating and ultimately the excavations spread to Vietnam where they continue to this day.
Along the way she was twice a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly and was instrumental in the establishment of the summit of the leaders in APEC: Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation.
Hers is quite a story, from embassies to the jungle, but always interesting. “I am proud of my service, and grateful for the rare opportunity I was given to represent my country abroad.”
Tull has maintained a Sea Isle resident since 1981 and also has an apartment in Washington D.C. We are all proud of our Madam Ambassador.