The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2015

90 JULY-AUGUST 2015 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL reporter and later a political adviser to the ThirdMarine Amphibious Force in Da Nang; and Japan (1969-1975). They later served in Tokyo (1984) and Okinawa (1985-1988), where he was consul general. They served in Seoul twice, from 1978 to 1982, and again from 1994 to 1996. In addition toWashington, D.C., where Mr. Richardson was director of Korean Affairs from 1988 to 1990, the couple spent three years in Colorado Springs while Mr. Richardson was a Japanese language instructor at the Air Force Academy and later political adviser to the commander of the Air Force Space Command. Mr. Richardson was an accomplished linguist, fluent in Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese and Spanish. Toward the end of his career, he was in line to be the first U.S. chargé d’affaires in Pyongyang, had politi- cal developments permitted the establish- ment of diplomatic relations. Mr. Richardson retired from the Foreign Service in 1997, and he andMrs. Richardson returned to Colorado Springs, making frequent trips to the ranch in northwest Nebraska where he grew up. He loved the blue skies and the broad spaces of the Pine Ridge country and the beautiful homestead of his childhood. In retirement, Mr. Richardson served for nearly seven years on a part-time basis as the American representative in North Korea to the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, a multina- tional entity created to implement the 1994 Agreed Framework between North Korea and the United States, the Republic of Korea, Japan and the European com- munity. During his time with KEDO, Mr. Rich- ardson traveled to North Korea more than 15 times (andMrs. Richardson once) and cumulatively spent more than two years in that country under difficult conditions, using his fluent Japanese and Korean to deal both with the North Koreans and with the United States’ ROK and Japanese partners. While the Agreed Framework ultimately failed, Mr. Richardson’s contri- butions to the effort were significant. During that period, he also edited and published the autobiography of his mother, Polly. Moving Out (Bison Books, 2002) chronicles his mother’s life in west- ern Nebraska and beyond. Friends and family remember Mr. Rich- ardson as an iconoclast and free spirit, and someone who was quick to see illogic and contradictions and never feared pointing themout. Mr. Richardson was predeceased by his parents and younger brother, Charles, who died in childhood. He is survived by his wife of 52 years, Sharon; his sons, Levi and Luke; his grandsons, William and Charles; his brother, William; and a number of nieces and nephews. n Leonard G. Shurtleff , 74, a retired FSO and former ambassador to the Repub- lic of the Congo, died in Gainesville, Fla., on Jan. 22, of heart failure. Mr. Shurtleff was born in Boston, Mass., on June 4, 1940. He graduated from Haverhill High School in 1958 and was a member of the National Honor Society. In 1962, he earned a bachelor’s degree (cum laude) in history and government from Tufts University and later attended gradu- ate school at the University of Chicago. Mr. Shurtleff joined the Foreign Service in 1962. Postings throughout his 33-year career included Caracas, Freetown, Douala, Nouakchott, Bogota, Monrovia, Brazzaville andWashington, D.C. In 1967 he married Christine Mor- rissette, a Foreign Service officer (with postings in Tunis and Abidjan) and past president of the Association of American Foreign Service Women (now known as the Associates of the American Foreign Service Worldwide, or AAFSW). While serving in Douala, Mr. Shurtleff was first on the scene at Embassy Malabo in Equatorial Guinea to take charge follow- ing the murder of an FSO by a colleague. In Monrovia, he was chargé d’affaires when Samuel Doe took power in a bloody coup. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan appointed himU.S. ambassador to the Republic of the Congo. In Brazzaville, where he served until 1990, Ambassador Shurtleff hosted negotiations that resulted in the Brazzaville Protocol, bringing peace to Angola. Amb. Shurtleff also served at the Department of State in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, in the Bureau of African Affairs as deputy executive director and director for regional affairs, and as deputy assistant secretary in the Office of the Under Secretary for Management. Amb. Shurtleff received the Meritori- ous and Superior Honor Awards, the Equal Opportunity Award and the Wilbur J. Carr Award. He was also commended for his mentoring of junior officers. Following retirement in 1995, Amb. Shurtleff served as honorary vice presi- dent of the Western Front Association and was president of the association’s United States branch (WorldWar One Histori- cal Association). He wrote and lectured on diplomatic, political and economic issues relating toWorldWar I, traveling to seminars all over the United States and to European battlefields. He was a member and local president of the Sons of the American Revolution, as well as a member of Gainesville’s Masonic Lodge, the Order of DeMolay, Sojourners, Alpha Tau Omega fraternity, AFSA and DACOR. Amb. Shurtleff is survived by his wife of 47 years, Christine Morrissette Shurtleff of Gainesville. n