His appearance and demeanor has always been one of a proper diplomat. Central Casting of Hollywood couldn’t have done a more credible job than the State Department did when it selected Fritts in 1986 as diplomat-in-residence at the College of William and Mary.

Appearance aside, Fritts, a career foreign service officer also had a distinguished record of service in far-flung diplomatic posts around the globe. In his last post he served as U.S. Ambassador to the African country of Ghana. While there, he was at center stage of a diplomatic mini-crisis involving charges and counter-charges of espionage. The result was the expulsion of four U.S. diplomats from Ghana and retaliation by Washington.

“In a situation like that, worldwide media attention tends to inflame national passions,” Fritts said in an interview with the Lake Placid News and the Virginia Gazette. “That is when diplomacy must step in to restore normal relationships, to assure that the overall interest of both parties takes precedent.”

The diplomat-in-residence program, initiated by the State Department, was an attempt to bring closer the practitioners of U.S. diplomacy and scholars whose academic discipline relates to foreign policy – to encourage cross-fertilization of ideas.

“The program was designed to operate on many levels,” Fritts said. “It brought into the classroom the experiences of someone who has been practicing foreign policy in the field. At the same time, the formal and informal contacts with the academic community, and the community at large, is beneficial to the visiting diplomat, too.”

Fritts’s tenure as diplomat-in-residence at the College of William & Mary has been so successful that it has inspired the establishment of an endowment that will fund a permanent diplomat-in-residence program at the Reves Center for International Studies at the College.

After retirement from the diplomatic service, Fritts and his wife Audrey made their home in Williamsburg. But he didn’t rest on his laurels. Of having became at age 39, the youngest U.S. ambassador in the history of the Foreign Service, as well as serving in hot spots like Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. His arrival there was coincidental with the assassination of the U.S. ambassador and his deputy. Fritts, a young, Foreign Service officer, took charge of the embassy.

As diplomat-in-residence and later as faculty member at W&M, as well as member of the Advisory Boards for the Public Policy Program and the Reves Center for International Studies, Fritts never stopped advocating and explaining the proper role U.S. foreign policy should play.

“The function of an American diplomatic representative, I believe, is to pursue the national interest of the United States,” he said. “Sometimes it means to be as friendly as possible. And sometimes it means being very tough. I can simply say that during my career, under many different administrations, I was always able to represent the U.S. proudly. Because we do try to carry out enlightened policies. Even when we may have the wrong policies, generally our intentions are good. Our approach is to try to develop rational, thoughtful, effective policies which represent values of the United States in a way which also meet the needs of the countries involved.”

Fritts’s views of the positive role the U.S. foreign service plays had an impact at the College of Williams & Mary. He recalled, at an informal meeting on the campus where he interacted with students, 80 of them showed to inquire about career opportunities in the Foreign Service.

“I was amazed by their interest in foreign affairs,” he said. “When I was an undergraduate we didn’t even know that the U.S. Foreign Service existed.”

Frank Shatz lives in Williamsburg,Va. and Lake Placid. His column was reprinted with permission from the Virginia Gazette. He is the author of “Reports from a Distant Place,” a compilation of his selected columns.