[2][4] He also served in the United States Navy and studied abroad at the Institut des Langues Orientales Vivantes in Paris.
[4] Crawford entered the United States Foreign Service in 1950, and between 1950 and 1972, he was stationed in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; Venice, Italy; Beirut, Lebanon; and Aden, Yemen.
[4] Some of the positions he served in during these years included director of Israeli and Arab-Israeli affairs at the Department of State, officer-in-charge of Arab-Israeli affairs at the Department of State, counselor at the US embassy in Morocco, and deputy ambassador to Cyprus.
[7] In 1974, the US ambassador to Cyprus, Rodger Davies, was assassinated in Nicosia, and Crawford was appointed his replacement.
He served as the executive director of the National Committee to Honor the 14th Centenary of Islam, as well as the president of Eisenhower Fellowships.