BOSTON – In a touching ceremony at his home in the Boston area on March 24 and in the context of the celebration of Greek Independence Day, retired U.S. Ambassador Monteagle Stearns was presented the with the documents and award indicating that he was made a Grand Commander of the Order of the Phoenix by the President of Greece.

The Consul General of Greece in Boston, Iphigenia Kanara, travelled to his home for the presentation.

Ambassador Stearns served as United States Ambassador to Greece from August 1981 through September 1985. It was challenging if not turbulent period in U.S. – Greece relations encompassing the presidency of Ronald Reagan and the rise of PASOK and Andreas Papandreou.

Stearns was born in Cambridge and now resides in Framingham, MA.

Since leaving the Foreign Service in 1987 he has been a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., Warburg Professor of International Relations at Simmons College in Boston, and Whitney H. Shepardson Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. In 1992 his book, Entangled Allies: US Policy Toward Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus, was published by the Council on Foreign Relations. A Greek edition was issued the same year by Pondiki Press in Athens.