Charles Robert Beecham

03/02/1923 - 04/17/2025

Charles Robert "Bob" Beecham died peacefully at home of natural causes at 102 years of age on April 17, 2025. He was interred at Culpeper National Cemetery. He is survived by his wife Jane Taylor-Beecham, daughters Joan Beecham of Kensington MD, Tane Beecham (Stuart) of Winnetka, IL, Megan Beecham (Thomas) of Bethesda, MD, stepdaughters Angela (Philip) Joseph of Mechanicsville, MD, and Pamela (Michael) Smith of King George, VA, and their children. His son Jeff Beecham preceded him in death in 2020.
Bob grew up as a farmer's son in Madison, South Dakota, later moving to Kansas. After high school, he moved to Washington, DC to work for the FBI. In 1943, with World War II raging, he joined the Army as an infantryman and was first sent to Italy, then on to fight in Germany as a machine gunner. He often told stories of digging foxholes in near-frozen ground, dragging his machine gun up steep hills in the German forests, surviving German tank bombardments, and being amazed at having lived through it all.
After the war, he returned to the FBI then back to Kansas to complete a degree in world history from the University of Kansas. He returned to Washington for a year of art school at the Corcoran where he developed a talent for painting, drawing, and sculpting.
In 1953, Bob joined the United States Information Agency (USIA), at the time a new independent foreign affairs organization within the executive branch of the U.S. government whose mission was to promote foreign policy and national interests through overseas information programs. He married Jane Harsha McKenzie, and they eventually had four children.
Bob spent 6 years posted in Tokyo, then returned to the US to study international relations at Stanford University. He was then posted for 6 years to Bangkok, Thailand during the Vietnam War. He returned to USIA headquarters in Washington and worked as an editor at the Voice of America. In 1974 he became director of USIA's Press and Publications Service, serving in this capacity until his retirement in 1979. After retirement he spent five years writing and publishing a newsletter, the Chronicle of International Communication.
In 1996 Bob married Sarah Jane Taylor and they eventually moved to Lake of the Woods Virginia, where he continued to play golf, paint, sculpt and draw. Never one to remain idle, at the age of 94 he wrote and published a novel, "Dire Road to the Untold" loosely based on his life and career in public diplomacy.
Service is private.