John Marshall Evans

Life

Born in Newport News, Virginia, Evans attended the Williamsburg-James City County public schools and later St. Andrew's School in Middletown, Delaware, where he won the Latin Prize and the St. Andrew's Cross and served as Senior Prefect. He studied Russian history at Yale University, earning an undergraduate degree with honors in Russian Studies. He pursued doctoral studies in History at Columbia University but left after one semester to join the U.S. Foreign Service in 1971. Evans served in the US foreign service in various capacities in Iran, Czechoslovakia, the former Soviet Union, and with the OSCE and NATO, as well as in the Office of Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and on the USSR desk. He studied languages and became fluent in Persian, Russian and Czech, as well as French. He does not speak Armenian beyond a smattering of phrases.

Dismissal from Armenian ambassadorship

Armenian sources have suggested that the sudden dismissal of Evans was due to his outspoken support for the recognition of the 1915 Armenian Genocide. Evans said as much in an oral history interview, in which he recalled that State Department Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried had accused him of “jamming the President” on the Armenian Genocide issue and because of that, Fried said “You’re going to have to leave.” It has been suggested that Turkey, an important U.S. ally in the Middle East, pressured the Department of State to remove Evans for his personal beliefs and statements.

After Evans's recall, the Armenian Assembly of America and the Armenian National Committee of America put pressure on the U.S. Senate to postpone the appointment of Richard E. Hoagland, the new nominee for the ambassadorship to Armenia, until the Bush administration clarified the reason for Evans's dismissal and on the suspicion that Hoagland did not sympathize with Armenian causes. Hoagland was nominated by President Bush during the 109th Congress, during which his nomination did not come up for a vote. The Bush Administration re-nominated Hoagland when the 110th session of the United States Congress convened, but the nomination, ultimately, was not confirmed. A new nominee, Marie L. Yovanovitch, came up for the post in 2008 and served till 2011. Currently Richard M. Mills, Jr. serves in the position as U.S. ambassador to Armenia.