Submitted by Billy  Hathorn

James Lynn "Jim" Ford (born October 6, 1937) is a retired United States Army officer who became a specialist in the study of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Ford was born in Minden to Claude Craighead Ford (1902-1977), a native of Bienville, Louisiana, and the former Christine Davidson (1905-1996), originally from Junction City, Arkansas.  Claude Ford owned and operated several service stations in Minden, the last having been a Phillips 66 outlet at the corner of the Sibley Road and Interstate 20 Bypass. Jim Ford graduated in 1955 near the top of his Minden High School class. He then attended Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, from which he procured in 1960 bachelor of arts and master of arts degrees in international relations.

 

Upon graduation, he entered the Army for an initial two-year hitch. In time, he served a full thirty years. He procured a second master's degree in Soviet and Slavic studies at the University of Kansas at Lawrence. He studied the German, Czech, and Polish languages at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California. Ford served two tours of duty in the former South Vietnam. He was a military advisor to the Vietnamese National Police.
 
During his military career, Ford was stationed in Washington, D.C., and throughout Germany -- Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Munich, and Berlin. His last assignment was at the American Embassy in Vienna, where he was, simultaneously, the Defense and Army Attache, the Military Assistance Officer, and the Senior United States/European Command Representative in Austria. Ford left the military in 1990 and became the associate deputy director for nonproliferation and national security within the United States Department of Energy. He focused on ways to halt the spread of nuclear weapons. While he was a visiting senior fellow at the National Defense University's Institute for National Strategic Studies in Washington, Ford published a book and several monographs on "nuclear smuggling" and related topics. He used his research to conduct training for officials of the former Soviet republics and eastern European countries at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's training facility in Budapest, Hungary.
 
In 1967, Ford married the former Linda Margaret Lee (born June 8, 1943), originally from Savannah, Georgia. She grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, and graduated from The Bryn Mawr School there and subsequently Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia. She also studied at The Sorbonne and Ecole Science Politique in Paris, France. Linda worked for the Department of State prior to their marriage and since was involved in both education and business and as a volunteer for the Junior League and the American Red Cross. She speaks French and German and was a "wandering ambassador" whose unofficial role included the welcoming of Queen Elizabeth II to Berlin and Admiral William Crowe and his wife to Vienna.

 

On retiring in 2001, the Fords built a lakeside home in Fawn Lake near Fredericksburg, Virginia, halfway between Washington and Richmond. They are involved in various leisurely pursuits, including tennis, golf, boating, and travel. Ford is an elder in the Presbyterian Church of Fredericksburg, the vice president of the Fawn Lake Community Association, and the president of the Fredericksburg Civil War Round Table. Mrs. Ford is active in the Daughters of the American Revolution and Friends of Stratford Hall (the Lee family plantation), on which both serve as directors.
 
The Fords are parents of two sons, David Lee Ford (born May 21, 1970, in Lawrence, Kansas) and James Andrew Ford (born October 4, 1973, in Fairfax, Virginia). David Ford is a senior consultant with Booz, Allen, and Hamilton, a large government and business firm in McLean, Virgina. He is single and lives in Washington, D.C. "Andy" Ford is vice president for strategic marketing with Fidelity Investments Company in Smithfield, Rhode Island. He is married to the former Emily Hazlett of Wheeling, West Virginia, and the couple has two young daughters, Sophia and Alexandra.
 
Jim's brother, Phillip L. Ford (born March 2, 1939), graduated from Minden High School in 1957 and attended LSU on a football scholarship but did not graduate. He is retired from the United States Air Force and Lockheed Martin Corporation and resides in Austin in Lonoke County, near Jacksonville, Arkansas.