Keeley, James H. (James Hugh), 1895-1990

James H. Keeley, Jr., attended the Military School of Aeronautics, Princeton University, in 1917, and received his B.A. degree from American University in Beirut in 1931. He served as a pilot in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War and joined the Foreign Service in 1920. From 1920 to 1931, Keeley was posted to various locations in the Middle East, including Istanbul, Turkey (1920-1923), Damascus, Syria (1923-28), and Beirut, Lebanon (1928-1931). Keeley then served in Montreal for four years followed by Salonika, Greece (1936-1939). After the outbreak of war in Europe, Keeley returned to Washington, where he held a variety of State Department posts, including chief of the Special War Problems Division (March 1943-September 1944). In 1948 Keeley was named American Minister to Syria, and in 1953 he became Consul-General in Palermo, Italy, where he served until his retirement in the early 1960s.