Palmer, Alison

Alison “Tally” Palmer was born in Medford, Massachusetts on November 22, 1931. She was the daughter of Lois Mead Patten Palmer and C.B. Palmer. Palmer had two siblings, David and Lois.

Alison Palmer graduated from Brown University in 1953. She went to work for the Christian Science Monitor after graduation, but was dissatisfied with her assignments. She was hired by The New York Times, but as at her previous job, found that she was assigned to cover the women's page rather than the political news she desired. In 1958 she took the exam for the Foreign Service and passed, but was told that it was the year the Service accepted a Black man and she would have to wait until the following year when a woman would be accepted. Palmer entered the Foreign Service in 1959. Her first assignment was in the Gold Coast, followed by assignment as a consul in the Belgian Congo. The Congo, considered a safe post for a woman erupted into violence not long after her arrival in 1960. As consul she handled relations between Americans and the Congolese, an explosive task in revolution. An incident involving a number of high-ranking United States officials, including Frank Carlucci, earned her national notoriety and a stint on the television program, "To Tell the Truth."

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