Requiescat in pace Ambassador Jose Sorzano.
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| Ambassador Jose S. Sorzano |
Ambassador Jose S. Sorzano passed away on December 29, 2020 after a long illness. He was a founding member of the Center for a Free Cuba in 1997 and earlier a member of the board of Of Human Rights, founded by Cuban human rights defender Elena Mederos.
Ambassador Sorzano's life story demonstrated the possibilities of the United States. Jose Sorzano was born in Havana, Cuba on November 9, 1940. He arrived on these shores a Cuban refugee with $5.00 in his pocket in 1961 fleeing the Castro dictatorship and took a job as a "deep-fry man in a Marriott HotShop." In 1965 he graduated from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and in 1972 obtained a doctorate from the Government Department. He went on to become first an "assistant professor, and later an associate professor in Georgetown's Government Department."
Professor Sorzano paused his teaching career at Georgetown to lead "the Peace Corps in Colombia from 1976 to 1979." Between 1983 and 1985, Ambassador Sorzano served as Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick's deputy at the United Nations. In 1985, he returned to Georgetown University to teach political philosophy .
In 1986, he was appointed Director of Latin American Affairs under President Ronald Reagan's National Security Advisor Frank Carlucci. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, in a July 25,1987 letter to the editor in The New York Times spoke glowingly of her former deputy at the United Nations.
"I advised Jose Sorzano not to resign his tenured position as professor at Georgetown University to take the National Security Council job [...] . Alas, he cared as little about displeasing me as Mr. Carlucci, the national security adviser, does. He resigned his tenured position at Georgetown and has been doing a first-class job at the N.S.C. -where, I am told, Mr. Carlucci is very pleased with his performance."
Throughout his career he defended the cause of freedom in the Americas. The "third wave of democratization" in Latin America began during his tenure in government. This was not a coincidence. The Reagan Administration viewed democracy as a weapon against Soviet and Cuban destabilization efforts in Central America, and democratization proved to be the correct approach to stifle communist revolutions.
It was an honor and a privilege to have known him and to have witnessed his defense of freedom generally, and his commitment to a free Cuba
Requiescat in pace Ambassador Jose Sorzano.
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