Valcour subsequently operated out of Norfolk, Virginia; Quonset Point, Rhode Island; Cristóbal, Panama Canal Zone; and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, tending seaplanes of the Fleet Air Wings, Atlantic, through mid-1949.

Having received orders designating her as flagship for the Commander, Middle Eastern Force (ComMidEastFor), Valcour departed Norfolk on 29 August 1949, steamed across the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean, stopping at Gibraltar and at Golfe Juan, France, transited the Suez Canal, and arrived at Aden, a British protectorate, on 24 September 1949.

Late in the summer of 1950, after a period of leave, upkeep, and training, she returned to the Middle East for her second tour as ComMidEastFor flagship, which lasted from 5 September 1950 to 15 March 1951.

The situation at that point looked so severe that Valcour's commanding officer, Captain Eugene Tatom, gave the order to abandon ship.

Fire and rescue parties, in some cases forced to use gas masks, succeeded in bringing the blaze under control but not before 11 men had died and 16 more had been injured.

In July 1953, during her fourth Middle East cruise, Valcour aided a damaged cargo ship in the Indian Ocean and then escorted her through a violent typhoon to Bombay, India.

Once Valcour's fire and rescue party had performed their salvage operation, Argea Prima's crew reboarded the ship and she continued her voyage.

Valcour performed her duties so efficiently that the Chief of Naval Operations congratulated ComMidEastFor for her outstanding contribution to good foreign relations and for her enhancement of the prestige of the United States.

The ship was also adjudged the outstanding seaplane tender in the Atlantic Fleet in 1957 and was awarded the Battle Readiness and Excellence Plaque and the Navy "E" in recognition of the accomplishment.

Around 1960 Valcour received some conspicuous equipment upgrades, including a tripod mast with a newer air search radar and a tall communications antenna which, with its deckhouse, replaced the quadruple 40-millimeter antiaircraft gun mount on her fantail.

Tasked to demonstrate American interest and good will in the Middle East, Valcour distributed textbooks, medicine, clothing, and domestic machinery (such as sewing machines) to the needy under the auspices of Project Handclasp.

[2] She shifted to the Inactive Ship Facility at Portsmouth, Virginia, so that she could be prepared for service as a test-bed for electromagnetic tests held under the auspices of the Naval Ordnance Laboratory (NOL), White Oak, Maryland.