The Foreign Service Journal, October 2010

O C T O B E R 2 0 1 0 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 69 Stephen Joseph Ledogar , 80, a retired FSO and former ambassador, died on May 3 in Edgewater, N.J., of bladder cancer. Mr. Ledogar was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Sept. 14, 1929, one of four children of Edward and Margaret Ledogar. He entered Fordham Uni- versity in 1949 under a Naval Reserve Officers Training program, but two years later went on active duty as a Navy pilot. He received his B.A. de- gree at Fordham in 1954 and com- pleted a law degree there in 1958. In 1959, Mr. Ledogar joined the Foreign Service. Following postings in Canada and Italy, in 1965 he was as- signed to Vietnam, where he adminis- tered pacification programs. From 1969 to 1972, he was press spokesman for the American delegation at the Paris peace talks, which ultimately ended the Vietnam War. During the rest of his 38-year diplo- matic career, Mr. Ledogar played a critical role in the three major arms control negotiations of the Reagan, Bush and Clinton administrations that sought to limit conventional, chemical and nuclear weapons. He was serving as the deputy chief of mission to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1987 when President Ronald Reagan promoted him to ambassador and ap- pointed him chief representative to ne- gotiations for the Treaty on Conven- tional Armed Forces in Europe, which was ultimately signed in November 1990. In 1993, Mr. Ledogar was the chief American negotiator when the Chem- ical Weapons Convention was signed. While working on the chemical weap- ons ban, he also served as head of the American delegation to the Confer- ence on Disarmament in Geneva. In that capacity, he became one of the pri- mary drafters of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in September 1996. Mr. Ledogar retired from the For- eign Service in 1997. A tireless and passionate worker for his country, he appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1999, three years after helping draft the nuclear test ban treaty, to urge its ratification. He was an avid cyclist. Family and friends recall his great decency and memorable sense of humor. Survivors include his wife, the for- mer Marcia Hubert, of Washington, D.C.; his daughter, Lucy van Beever; his son, Charles; a sister, Anne Leyden; two brothers, Edward and Robert; and three grandchildren. Harold F. Schneidman , 87, a re- tired FSO with the U.S. Information Agency, died on May 18 in Washing- ton, D.C., after a long and debilitat- ing illness. Mr. Schneidman was born on June 23, 1922, in Hazelton, Pa. His par- ents were Eastern European immi- grants who later lost their dry goods business in the Great Depression. They then moved to Philadelphia, where Harold’s father was lucky to get a job delivering bread. Although poor, they were not impoverished; rather, their lives were enriched by the vibrant cultural life of the city. “Both unorthodox and eclectic,” is the way Mr. Schneidman described his education in a later interview. He attended such diverse institutions as the Fels Institute at the University of Pennsylvania for public administra- tion in state and local government; the Charles Morris Price School of Journalism and Advertising; and what was then the Delaware Valley Col- lege, in agriculture. In later years he did research in international affairs and attended both Harvard Univer- sity and Cornell University for area studies and language training. With the advent of World War II, Mr. Schneidman joined the Coast Guard as a combat correspondent. He also did public relations for the Coast Guard variety show, “Tars and Spars,” featuring Victor Mature, Sid Caesar and Gower Champion. The show traveled to every state in the country, raising thousands of dollars for the Coast Guard Welfare Fund and helping with recruitment. Returning to Philadelphia after the war, Mr. Schneidman became one of the early specialists in the field of citizen participation in community development. He was successively a consultant to a number of civic and local government organizations in the mid-Atlantic region, a staff director of the Greater Philadelphia Movement and chief of the Bureau of Public In- formation and Service of the City of Philadelphia. In the mid-1950s he was a consultant to the American Municipal Association, which became the National League of Cities. Concurrently, in the fall of 1955, Mr. Schneidman opened one of the first espresso bars in Washington, D.C. Called The Gallery, it was at 3213 O St. NW in Georgetown, and combined continental fare and con- temporary artwork. In 1957, Mr. Schneidman joined the U.S. Information Agency. He served as information officer in the Philippines and Italy and as cultural affairs officer in Indonesia. In 1965, he represented USIA in an intera- gency review of foreign operations chaired by General Maxwell Taylor. I N M E M O R Y