Christine Dodson

Christine Dodson, dedicated wife, mother, and grandmother, died at home in New York on November 15, 2023. A strong-willed, vivacious, and generous woman with an expansive personality, Christine was born in Athens, Greece in 1935, the second of four children to politician Panayiotis and his wife Eva Sifneos. Exposed early to diplomacy, she had a passion for world affairs and political deliberations. She grew up speaking English, French and Greek and later studied Arabic and Russian.

She attended the University of Athens Law School from 1953 to 1956, followed by a year at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she studied political science and journalism on a Fulbright Scholarship. In 1958 she earned a Masters degree from Columbia University's School of International Affairs. She married her classmate Richard Dodson of Springfield, Ohio, on January 1, 1958. Their son Michael was born in 1958 and daughter Laura in 1960.

After graduation, she worked at Columbia's Research Institute on International Change as professor Zbigniew Brzezinski's administrative assistant. Ambitious and eager to expand her professional skills, Christine studied computer programming at night, and was hired as the project leader at the university's computer center. In 1976, Brzezinski was appointed National Security Advisor for President Jimmy Carter, and he invited Christine to join him in Washington, where she became the NSC's chief of staff.

Following Carter's presidency, Christine started a new career at the United Nations. She spent four years as head of recruitment in New York, then moved to Iraq from 1986 to 1988 as chief of administration with the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, a posting she remembered fondly before the country devolved. In 1988, she returned to New York as the UN's head of training service, then became chief administration officer at the United Nations Special Commission, overseeing efforts to ensure Iraqi compliance in destroying its weapons of mass destruction. Her final UN job was head of personnel, a position she held from 1993 until she retired in 1998. Following her retirement she volunteered as the chief financial officer at the Council for Refugees in Athens, and later volunteered for the Greek Annunciation Church in Manhattan.

Christine lived in New York, Baghdad, Geneva, Vienna, and Athens. Her close friend Madeleine Albright described her as "...superb, genuinely admired and respected by her colleagues, enthusiastic, with a prodigious amount of energy directed to productive ends in the most efficient way." She loved hosting raucous dinner parties. Her favorite saying was "On ne mange bien que chez moi!". She spent her quieter hours on the couch immersed in her newspaper. She maintained close ties to Greece throughout her life, spending summers at her seaside home on the Greek island of Lesvos, where she swam extensively and enjoyed the company of her extended family and lifelong friends.

Christine, whose husband of 63 years, Richard, died in April of the same year, is survived by her children Michael and Laura Dodson, her granddaughter Zoe Vassiliou, her siblings Kostis and Katerina Sifneos, her nieces and nephews Alexia, Mike, Panayioti, and Maximos Sifneos, and their children Phili Cool and Manolis Sifneos.