Joseph Frank Friedkin: Boundary Commissioner and Chamizal Dispute Negotiator (1909–2008)

Joseph Frank Friedkin, United States boundary commissioner and negotiator of the settlement that ended the Chamizal dispute, was born on October 18, 1909, in Brooklyn, New York. He was the son of Joel Friedkin and Irene (Hedden) Friedkin. His father was an immigrant tailor who moved the family to El Paso by 1917 and opened a shop in the Sheldon Hotel. Friedkin graduated from El Paso High School and went on to the Texas College of Mines, which later became Texas Western College and then the University of Texas at El Paso. He was student body president and captain of the basketball team in college. He was also captain of the tennis team in 1930 and won the College Tennis Tournament in 1931. He graduated with a degree in mining engineering in 1932. He also played clarinet with the El Paso Symphony Orchestra, although his tenure with the orchestra reportedly ended as soon as the director paid off a debt owed to Friedkin’s father.

In 1934 Joseph Friedkin joined the International Boundary and Water Commission as a hydraulic engineer. He remained with the commission until 1942, when he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers. He served primarily on flood control and navigation projects on the lower Mississippi River. He also did postgraduate work at Mississippi State University in 1944. In 1946 Friedkin left the Army Corps of Engineers with the rank of major and returned to the Boundary Commission as resident engineer in San Diego, California, until 1952, when he became principal engineer at commission headquarters in El Paso.

In 1962, following the retirement of L. H. Hewitt, Friedkin was appointed United States commissioner by President John F. Kennedy. He negotiated for the United States on agreement for the construction and operation of Amistad International Dam and Reservoir near Del Rio and coordinated United States interests in the seven Colorado River basin states for an international salinity agreement in 1965. He also negotiated the agreement for the construction of the International Nogales Clean Water Project in 1971.

Friedkin’s greatest accomplishment, however, was probably his role in facilitating the peaceful settlement of the Chamizal dispute. He coordinated communications between the governments of the United States and Mexico, defended the settlement before Congress, and argued for the appropriations necessary to implement the settlement. Subsequently, he was promoted by President Lyndon B. Johnson from commission to ambassador.

Friedkin was chairman of the National Water Policy Committee of the American Society of Civil Engineers and a member of the United States Executive Committee of the International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage. He was named a fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers and was a member of the American Geophysical Union, the American Society of Military Engineers, and the International Society of Professional Engineers. He was also a member of the Lancer’s Club and on the board of directors of the El Paso YMCA. He received the Army Commendation Ribbon from the Corps of Engineers and the R. J. Tipton Award in 1981 and the President’s Award in 1984 from the American Society of Civil Engineers. He was named El Paso’s Federal Civil Servant of the Year, Engineer of the Year, Citizen of the Year, and Outstanding Ex-Student of Texas Western College. Kiwanis International named Friedkin Public Works Man of the Year, and the Texas Highway Branch of the Associated General Contractors of America named him West Texas Public Works Man of the Year. In November 1972 the El Paso County Historical Society inducted him into the El Paso Hall of Honor. Friedkin retired from the Boundary Commission in 1986 and that same year was given the U. S. Department of State Distinguished Honor Award for his work on the Chamizal settlement.

Joseph Friedkin married Nellie May Berry on March 21, 1937. They had two daughters. He died on January 14, 2008, and was buried in Fort Bliss National Cemetery in El Paso.