John Christopher Stevens obit

Slain Ambassador Chris Stevens Was 'A Very Smart, Very Funny Guy,' Says Cal Roommate Austin Tichenor

Playwright Austin Tichenor, a classmate who shared a birthday with slain Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, recalls a friend who "never got cynical" during their years at Piedmont High School and as roommmates at UC Berkeley. 

He was not on the list.

Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, killed in an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on Tuesday night, was "a very funny, very smart guy but never got cynical," says Austin Tichenor, a classmate at Piedmont High School and Stevens' roommate at the University of California, Berkeley.

Tichenor shared his memories of Stevens in a phone interview with Piedmont Patch Wednesday afternoon.

"Chris loved being in that part of the world, trying to make a difference in a troubled part of the world," Tichenor said.

Stevens was a teenager with "a big goofy grin" who played tennis and acted in musical productions at Piedmont High and Cal, Tichenor said. Stevens and Tichenor shared a birthday — April 18 — and a love of musical theater.

"I directed him in musicals at Cal and in a 1980 musical at Piedmont High School, part of Piedmont's Fourth of July celebration," said Tichenor, who is now an actor, playwright and co-owner of the Reduced Shakespeare Co., a Chicago-based theater group.

Although they took very different career paths, the two men remained friends over the years.

"We were both in Washington, D.C. in the summer of 2010 and talked until 2 in the morning — we wouldn't let him shut up," Tichenor said.

He said Stevens also returned to Piedmont about two years ago to share the holidays with his family. Stevens' mother and stepfather, Mary and Robert Commanday (a long-time music critic for the San Francisco Chroncle) still live in Piedmont, Tichenor said. Stevens' father and many other relatives also live in Northern California, he said.

"He's from a big, successful family of doctors and lawyers," Tichenor said.

During the 2012 Benghazi attack, a fire was set against the wall of the main consulate building while three Americans were inside—Stevens, Sean Smith, and a security officer. According to U.S. officials, the security officer escaped; the staff found Smith dead. They were unable to locate Stevens before being driven from the building under large arms fire. Local civilians found Stevens and brought him to the Benghazi Medical Centre in a state of cardiac arrest. Medical personnel tried to resuscitate him, but he was pronounced dead at about 2am local time on September 12, 2012. Later reports suggested that the attack was coordinated and planned, with any protests either coincidental or possibly diversionary. Libyan president Muhammad Magariaf blamed elements of Ansar al-Sharia for the killing, linking them to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Libyan officials suggested that it might have been a revenge attack mounted by loyalists (of deceased Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi) who were defeated in the Libyan Civil War the previous year. The doctors who tended to Stevens said that no visible physical wounds were found on his body and that he died from smoke inhalation, making hypoxia the cause of his death.

Grave of John Christopher Stevens in Grass Valley, California

The surviving Americans were taken to a safe house. A rescue squad consisting of eight former U.S. military was sent from Tripoli, the capital. They were ambushed and the safe house came under attack. Two more Americans died, including one sent from Tripoli; several were wounded. Later reports identified the victims as Tyrone S. Woods and Glen A. Doherty, both former Navy SEALs working as security and intelligence contractor.

Stevens joined the United States Foreign Service in 1991. His early overseas assignments included: deputy principal officer and political section chief in Jerusalem, political officer in Damascus, consular/political officer in Cairo, and consular/economic officer in Riyadh. In Washington, Stevens served as director of the Office of Multilateral Nuclear and Security Affairs, Pearson Fellow with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Senator Richard Lugar, special assistant to Undersecretary for Political Affairs, Iran desk officer, and staff assistant in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.

He had served in Libya twice previously: as Deputy Chief of Mission, 2007 to 2009, and as Special Representative to the National Transitional Council, March 2011 to November 2011, during Libyan revolution. He arrived in Tripoli in May 2012 as U.S. Ambassador to Libya.