Abdul Halim Shams is a native of Afghanistan and a graduate of the University of Kabul, where he studied pharmacy and economics. His uncle served first as Physician to the King and then for a time as Prime Minister. Mr. Shams’ brother was a high official in the Afghan Air Force.

During the 1960s, Shams accompanied his friend, then the Prime Minister, on numerous diplomatic trips abroad. He met with such heads of state as Nikita Khrushchev. As general manager of a large American pharmaceutical firm in Afghanistan, and as a long-time officer in the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce (including a term as president), he traveled extensively throughout the Middle East. In the public sector, Mr. Shams served various Afghan governments as Foreign Representative to Iran, President of Internal Trade with a high position in the Ministry of Commerce, member of the National Economic Council, and personal advisor to and emissary of the President. On several occasions he was sent on diplomatic missions to the Soviet Union, and met more than once with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.

When the Soviet Union invaded his country in December of 1979, Shams was arrested by the Soviets, accused of being a CIA spy, and sentenced to death. Incarcerated for five months, he was saved just moments before his scheduled execution in a daring rescue operation conducted by Afghan Freedom Fighters, the mujahideen. He and his family fled to Pakistan and then to the United States, where they settled in California.