The Foreign Service Journal, February 2007

William J. Barnsdale , 84, a retired Foreign Service officer, died of pancreatic cancer on Sept. 24 in Berkeley, Calif., where he had lived in retirement since 1985. Born in Hayward, Calif., Mr. Barnsdale graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and served as a radar officer and submariner in World War II, before joining the Foreign Service in 1947. Mr. Barnsdale’s Foreign Service career was spent mostly in Italy: he served in Rome twice, the second time as counselor for political affairs; in Naples twice; as consul in Bari; and as consul general in Florence. He also served in Stockholm, Bom- bay, Belgrade, Blantyre (as deputy chief of mission) and in the Office of Eastern European Affairs in Wash- ington. His language and area spe- cialty was Serbo-Croatian. Following retirement from the Foreign Service in 1975, Mr. Barns- dale joined the U.N. World Food Program, and was posted to Islama- bad as country director for five years. At that time the developing crisis in Afghanistan, with large numbers of refugees needing emergency assis- tance in the Northwest Frontier and Peshawar area, saw the WFP’s focus shift from country development using donated food as payment for projects like reforestation, road building and dams, etc., to emergency food aid. From 1980 to 1985, he served in Rome as assistant to the executive director of the program. Mr. Barnsdale’s role in helping to reform the World Food Program, making it what it is today, is recalled by James Ingram, a former Austral- ian diplomat and WFP executive director from 1982 to 1992, in his soon-to-be published account, Bread and Stones: Leadership and the Struggle to Reform the U.N. World Food Program. Mr. Barnsdale’s “commitment to the WFP and his personal integrity were valued by us all,” Ingram wrote recently, in a pri- vate condolence message. “For my part, his wise counsel and moral sup- port were simply indispensable,” he adds. “Thus I (and WFP) owe Bill a debt of gratitude,” Ingram states. “The international community and the member nations of the United Nations are indebted far more than they appreciate to the competence and commitment of people like Bill [Barnsdale].” In retirement, Mr. Barnsdale main- tained his interest in things Italian, belonging to a number of Italian cul- tural and culinary organizations. He was also an active member of the Foreign Service Association of North- ern California, the Naval Order and World Affairs Council, and was a Knight Commander of the Sovereign Order of St. John and past comman- der of the San Francisco Comman- dery of the Order. He frequently spoke before Bay Area groups about world affairs. Mr. Barnsdale is survived by his wife of 62 years, Florence McKeown Barnsdale of Berkeley, Calif.; sons William Jr. of Sacramento, Calif., John of Auburn, Calif., and Andrew of Kensington, Calif.; daughter Mary of Albany, Calif.; eight grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. Dolores F. (“Dolly”) Harrod , 61, a former senior official with the U.S. Department of Commerce and the spouse of retired FSO John P. Harrod, died on Nov. 15 in New Lon- don, N.H., of complications from a five-and-a-half-year struggle with ovarian cancer. Born on May 2, 1945, in Man- chester, N.H., Mrs. Harrod was the daughter of Clarence W. and Vera (Pstragowski) Foley. She attended parochial and public schools in Manchester, and earned a B.A. from Mt. Holyoke College and an M.A. in Slavic linguistics from the University of Chicago. She was fluent in both Polish and Russian. After completing graduate school, she worked as a guide/linguist on U.S. cultural ex- change exhibitions in the former Soviet Union and Poland. In 1971, she married John P. (“Jack”) Harrod, a Foreign Service officer with the U.S. Information 76 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 7 I N M EMORY