J. Christopher Stevens, the American ambassador killed in Libya, will be remembered as a hero, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday.
by Michael Pearson, CNN
Chris Stevens knew what he was getting into.
He knew, longtime friend Daniel Seidemann said, that Libya was a place of great promise, but also one of great peril.
"When he went to Libya, he had no illusions about where he was going," Seidemann said.
"He has probably done more than anybody on the planet to help the Libyan people, and he know going in that this was not going to protect him."
U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens died Tuesday in an assault on the American Consulate in Benghazi, the very city where he had arrived aboard a cargo ship in the spring of 2011 to help build ties between the upstart rebellion and the rebels.
"He risked his life to stop a tyrant, then gave his life trying to help build a better Libya," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday.
"The world needs more Chris Stevenses," Clinton said.
Stevens graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1982, then took a pause in his studies to join the Peace Corps, according to his State Department biography.
"Growing up in California, I didn't know much about the Arab world," he said in a State Department video prepared to introduce him to the Libyan people after his appointment as ambassador in May.
"I worked as an English teacher in a town in the High Atlas Mountains in Morocco for two years, and quickly grew to love this part of the world," he said. [MORE]



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