Swift, Elizabeth Ann

Foreign Service officer and former hostage in Iran, Elizabeth Ann Swift graduated from Radcliffe College in 1962. She joined the Foreign Service in 1963 and worked in Manila and Jakarta before being assigned in 1979 to Tehran as a deputy political counselor. By chance she was the ranking officer at the American embassy when it was taken by followers of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and one of two women held hostage for fourteen months. After being released in 1981, Swift served in a number of consular positions abroad and was credited with improving the State Department’s services to victims of terrorism and with initiating major changes to its travel advisory program. She married Paul D. Cronin in 1994 and settled in Sweet Briar, Virginia. She died in 2004 in a horseback riding accident.