Newsmaker 'Ambassador' Peter Hickman dead at 85

Peter J. Hickman, a former foreign-service officer who became a major contributor to the success of the National Press Club's Newsmaker program, died of heart failure Sunday, April 2, in Tuscon, Arizona. He was 85 and a Club member for 28 years.

"Peter absolutely loved the Press Club, it's mandate, and all the people who worked there," said his son, Michael. "It kept him busy, motivated, involved, and most importantly, happy, for decades after he retired from the civil service."

A memorial service will be held at 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 13, in the Club Ballroom.

Peter moved to Tuscon, Arizona, to be close to his son after suffering a heart attack in his Bethesda, Maryland, home in October 2016.

He served for years as the Club's ambassador to embassies, organizing an amazing number foreign policy news events hosted by the Club.

Michael said his father's ashes will be interred in Congressional Cemetery. "Peter was a Washingtonian first and he should come home to rest in the District," he said. "I will make sure that happens."

"One of his Newsmakers featured 10 prime ministers at once," former Club President Mark Hamrick wrote in a 2011 blog post. "Another had three presidents, from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania." Hamrick noted that some 150 Newsmaker events arranged by Peter featuring heads of state. Foreign government and organization officials helped make the Newsmaker venue "one of our most valuable."

Peter was born in Dallas and was raised by an aunt after his parents died while he was in his early teens. He graduated from the University of Texas in Austin with a degree in English and joined the Navy during the Korean War. He served as a journalist aboard the battleship USS Iowa and edited the ship's yearbook. After being discharged, Peter joined the State Department's foreign service. He worked for the U.S. Information Agency in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in the 1960s and then for the U.S. Agency for International Development and the General Services Administration, retiring in 1997.

Peter was a freelance writer and covered events for the Wire. He did some international consulting with a special interest in post Soviet Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

Club Executive Director William McCarren recalled seeing Peter jogging early in the morning in all kinds of weather. "It was often in the dark, and then he would come into the Club to host Newsmakers," McCarren said. "I would say he hosted hundreds of Newsmakers in his time at the Club."

Whenever McCarren attended an evening embassy event "I would invariably find Peter Hickman there, already at the bar and often with the ambassador or other official. I think he went to something every night. May God bless him."

"Peter really was a big worker bee for the Club and really loved the institution," said 2016 Club President Thomas Burr.

2014 Club President Myron Belkind, former chair of the Club's International Committee, said Peter was the Club's "unofficial, but very effective, ambassador to the large diplomatic community in Washington D.C. His heart was in the NPC, and he contributed greatly to the international activities of the Club, always reaching out to embassies to ensure that important international leaders spoke at Newsmakers. He had a wealth of contacts whom he nurtured so that they would be aware of the Club —- and he did so by often taking them to lunch in the NPC's Reliable Source and then giving them a personal tour. It is going to be difficult to go into the Reliable Source now and not have Peter get up from a lunch and enthusiastically introduce his guests to fellow members. His legacy and his contributions to the NPC will live on in our memories."

Long-time Newsmaker colleague David Anderson noted that Peter "had a special talent for interacting with embassy personnel to the benefit of the Press Club." He was "a role model for his colleagues on the Newsmakers Committee. Every embassy I contacted to get an ambassador or head of state knew Peter as the go-to guy and best Press Club contact. The Club will have a hard time replicating Peter's invaluable contributions over his many years of exceptional service."

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly named Mr. Hickman's son as "Richard Hickman." His son's name is Michael Hickman. The story has been corrected to reflect this.