A loving tribute penned by Donna in memory of her Tom (Part 2)

After his return from Turkey in 2001, Tom served as Chief Director: Latin America in the Department of Foreign Affairs from 2001 to 2003 when he retired – for 16 hours. The next day, Tom began his second career as Chief Operating Officer for the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA). 

It was the perfect retirement job. It kept Tom connected to and participating in the international community and allowed him to do what he did so well: facilitating connections between people and being a living resource of information. He was always generous with his time and more than willing to aid those doing research on South Africa’s international relations.

Over the next 11 years of his “step-down retirement,” at SAIIA one of his roles would be in media relations. This gave Tom the opportunity to realize, indirectly, his early dream of becoming a radio announcer when he began to provide media commentary for numerous radio and TV channels. Later he was asked to write a weekly commentary on some international issue (under his own byline) for The New Age newspaper. 

The connections he made through working at SAIIA and his new persona as a “journalist” provided yet more opportunities to travel.

In 2006 he visited Germany as a guest of the Foreign Ministry. In 2013 he visited Hungary and Azerbaijan as a guest of their Foreign Ministries, Ireland as a tourist and France to speak at a conference in Paris held as part of the South African Weeks programme. He attended the Africa Forums of the Turkish Asia Security Research Centre (TASAM) in 2008, 2009, 2012 and 2013. He was invited by the Turkish government to attend the Prime Ministerial Media Forum in Ankara in 2102 as one of five South African journalists. He was invited to participate as a journalist in 2011 in the Israeli President’s Conference on Facing Tomorrow. 

He even dappled into the academic world. Tom lectured at the South African National Defence College, at Witwatersrand University’s Department of International Relations, and for the Foreign Service Institute of the Department of Foreign Affairs he presented a short course to South Sudanese diplomats in training at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth in May 2011.

He spoke on South Africa and Turkey: a long and multifaceted relationship at the International Society for Cultural History at Monash University in Johannesburg in 27 November 2014.  He addressed the Council on Foreign Relations in Mexico City on Central Asia on 24 July 2007.

In addition to his career, Tom belonged to numerous Rotary clubs and in multiple countries: Sydney, Australia; New York; Washington DC; Ankara, Turkey; Pretoria and Johannesburg. He was President of his Rotary Clubs in Pretoria and Johannesburg and an Assistant Governor.

Among the many publications he wrote after joining SAIIA are a monograph entitled The Development of Relations between Turkey and South Africa 1860-2005, and a chapter on Central Asia and the Caspian Region: Their significance for South Africa which appeared in the SA Yearbook of International Affairs 2006/7. An article entitled Ankara to Africa: Turkey’s Outreach to Africa since 2005 was published in the South African Journal of International Affairs in April 2011. He has also contributed several short articles on Turkish – South African relations which are available on the website www.saiia.org.za.

But the story was always the most important thing for Tom. He loved telling the stories of his career to young researchers and the tales of our adventures together to anyone who would listen.

When Tom and his former DFA colleagues, Pieter Wolvaardt and Werner Scholtz realized that many of the stories of those who had served in the old South African Department of Foreign Affairs were being lost, the three solicited and complied many of those account into a trilogy of books. These were published under the title From Verwoerd to Mandela: South African Diplomats Remember (March 2011).

It was an attempt to get more of those stories preserved and made available to a wider audience that was the inspiration behind this blog. It was a joint effort: Tom found material; I scanned documents into readable files; Tom cleaned them up and then sent on to “Tom’s Techie,” Geoff van Heerden, for uploading onto the site.  

Now, you must send your own stories and keep the conversation going. Each account adds another piece to the picture, making it richer and more nuanced.

Tom loved being a diplomat. He loved meeting people, having conversations, traveling, mentoring others, and hearing and telling the stories.

And I will always love him. He gave me a world I would never have known without him. Please – tell the rest of the stories for him and each other.

Donna Wyckoff-Wheeler

Johannesburg, 19 May 2017