The Foreign Service Journal, March 2014

64 MARCH 2014 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL sador and Mrs. Frank V. Ortiz Palace of the Governors Endowment Fund, c/o Museum of New Mexico Foundation, P.O. Box 2065, Santa Fe NM 87505 (www. museumfoundation.org) . n Wesley Niels Munkholm Peder- sen , 91, a retired Foreign Service officer with the U.S. Information Agency, died on Dec. 4 at the Carriage Hill Bethesda nursing home in Bethesda, Md., as the result of a heart ailment. Mr. Pedersen was born in South Sioux City, Neb., on July 10, 1922. In the 1940s, he worked as a reporter at the Sioux City Journal in Iowa and served in the Army Air Forces during World War II. Mr. Pedersen joined the State Depart- ment in 1950 and the U.S. Information Agency in 1953. As Richard Leiby writes in an obituary for the Washington Post , Mr. Pedersen covered the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and China, penning pseudonymous columns planted in newspapers around the world, as part of propaganda operations during the Cold War. Mr. Pedersen’s stories—under such phony bylines as “Benjamin West” and “Paul Ford”—had wide reach, Leiby wrote. Some Central Intelligence Agency competitors in the propaganda game reportedly grew envious. As Mr. Pedersen recounted it in a letter in the Washington Post in 2008: “In the mid-1950s, the CIA in Paris approached Lowell Bennett, the U.S. embassy’s press attaché, requesting that he prevail on USIA to stop distributing Ford. Why? Because French editors weren’t publish- ing the CIA’s similar column, but it might have a chance with Ford’s out of the way. Bennett, of course, said no.” At heart he was a writer—a witty wordsmith who never lacked robust opinions, concludes Leiby. Mr. Pedersen peppered the Washington Post’s letters pages with missives on political history, martinis and the misuse of words (never write “from whence,” he instructed; just “whence”). Mr. Pedersen was posted to Hong Kong in 1960, but returned to Washington, D.C., in 1963 to become head of a USIA interna- tional publications program. He wrote and edited Legacy of a President , which was published a year after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. That compila- tion of speeches and photos became an international bestseller. He also oversaw the production of photo-heavy biographies of Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon, which required yielding to the subjects’ peculiar vanities. Johnson “favored his left profile and wouldn’t tol- erate photos taken of him from the right,” Mr. Pedersen said. The Nixon White House was easier to work with, he said, objecting to just one photo for a particular project. “It showed then-Congressman Nixon, his wife and two young daughters on bicycles at the reflecting pool in Washington,” Mr. Pedersen said. “Herb Klein, Nixon’s press secretary, asked only that Nixon’s face be airbrushed to eliminate an early five- o’clock shadow.” After 30 years in government, Mr. Pedersen became communications director at the Public Affairs Council, an organization of corporate and trade asso- ciation public affairs executives, where he worked for 26 years. A Chevy Chase resident, Mr. Pedersen was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the National Capital Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America in 2005. Survivors include his wife of 65 years, Angela Vavra Pedersen of Chevy Chase; a son, Eric Pedersen of Glen Burnie, Md.; and two granddaughters. n Gerald (Jerry) Everett Snyder , 78, a retired Foreign Service officer, died on Dec. 20 in Tallahassee, Fla., after a decade-long struggle with cancer. Mr. Snyder was born on June 14, 1935, in Akron, Ohio. He graduated from Green Township High School in Greenburg, Ohio, in 1953, served in the U.S. Marines and went on to earn a bachelor’s degree from the University of Akron in 1962. After college, he joined the State Department Foreign Service. During a 25-year diplomatic career, Mr. Snyder served overseas in La Paz, Cochabamba, Porto Alegre, Bogotá, Moscow and Brus- sels, along with assignments in Miami and New York City. Mr. Snyder was particularly proud of serving as chairman of the Admin- istrative Operations and Management courses for the Foreign Service Institute from 1972 to 1975. In 1983, he was sent to Beirut as part of the restoration team after the bombing of the Marine Corps barracks. Colleagues remember Mr. Snyder as someone who never boasted about his experiences or the dangers he faced in service to his country, but was always willing to share his skills and wisdom. After leaving the federal government, he served as vice president and general manager of Halifax Security Services in Honduras, and as budget and financial administrator at the Tallahassee State Department of Administration. Mr. Snyder spent his retirement years as a full-time caregiver for both of his parents and enjoyed giving the occa- sional lecture and courses on interna- tional affairs. He loved crossword puzzles and was a ferocious advocate for racial freedom and justice, international peace, immigration reform, education and universal access to safe drinking water,