The Foreign Service Journal, October 2018

64 OCTOBER 2018 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Mr. Lefkow attended the National War College at Fort McNair from 1972 to 1973, writing his thesis about Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. In 1973 he was assigned to Tel Aviv, serving as embassy spokesperson dur- ing the Yom Kippur War and handling the large media contingent covering the shuttle diplomacy of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Mr. Lefkow served as deputy chief for news at the Voice of America in Wash- ington, D.C., from 1975 to 1976 before being posted to London, where he was the speechwriter for Ambassador Anne Armstrong. From there Mr. Lefkow was posted to Paris, where he served as information officer. From 1979 to 1981, he was on the staff of the National Security Council, serving as assistant press secretary to National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and White House spokesper- son Jody Powell. In 1982 he was assigned to Nairobi, where he served as public affairs officer and was promoted to minister coun- selor. He spent two years as USIA direc- tor for Africa before returning to Tel Aviv in 1988 for his final foreign posting. Mr. Lefkow retired in 1990. A horse racing enthusiast since his Louisville days, he dabbled in purchases of tiny shares of thoroughbreds after his retirement in the hopes of saddling a Kentucky Derby winner. Mr. Lefkow was predeceased by his wife, Barbara Vine of Rochester, Minn., whom he married in 1955. Survivors include daughters Laurel Lefkow of London, England, and Leslie Lefkow of Amsterdam, the Netherlands; son David Lefkow of Washington, D.C.; and five grandchildren. n Donald Charles Leidel, 90, a retired Foreign Service officer and former ambassador, died on April 19 at home in Sarasota, Fla. Born in Madison, Wis., he earned his bachelor’s degree in political science and a JD degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Ambassador Leidel spent 41 years in government service with the United States Air Force, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of State. He served in Austria, Germany, Argentina, Mexico and Bahrain, where he was ambassador from 1983 to 1986 and again in 1989. His other overseas experience included a study on racial attitudes in Africa based on visits to five African countries, and post-retirement consultancies in Slovakia and Oman. His Washington, D.C., assignments included service as executive director in the Bureaus of Educational and Cultural Affairs and European Affairs, deputy director of management operations and dean of the School of Professional Stud- ies at the Foreign Service Institute. Before moving to Sarasota, Fla., in 1994, Amb. Leidel was the Scarff Dis- tinguished Professor of Diplomacy at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis. In retirement he enjoyed lecturing on diplomacy and U.S. policy in the Middle East and established the Donald C. Leidel International Business Schol- arship Fund to send up to six University of Wisconsin undergraduates to attend the Middle East Institute annual confer- ence in Washington, D.C., every fall. Amb. Leidel was an avid tennis player, a world traveler and a loyal Chi- cago Cubs and Wisconsin Badgers fan. He is survived by his wife, Beverly; children Katherine, Peter and Michael; a brother, Fred; grandchildren David (and his wife, Michelle), Katy, Jennifer and James; and a great-grandchild, Joshua. n Melvin H. Levine, 88, a retired Foreign Service officer, died on March 19 at home in New Bedford, Mass., sur- rounded by family. Born in New Bedford, Mass., a son of the late Israel Louis and Libby Rose (Epstein) Levine, Mr. Levine attended New Bedford public schools, Harvard College and Harvard Law School. Between college and law school, he served two years in the U.S. Army. After graduating from law school in 1957, Mr. Levine joined the Foreign Service. During his first overseas assign- ment in France, he met Texas resident Katherine “Kitty” (Vann) Levine, who was also working at the U.S. embassy. The two were married for 54 years. After marrying, they moved to Vietnam for Mr. Levine’s next diplo- matic assignment. He was inside the U.S. embassy in Saigon in March 1965 when a Viet Cong soldier detonated a car bomb that killed 22 and injured 183, including Mr. Levine. He later made a full recovery. Other posts include Italy, Taiwan and South Korea and a stint as part of National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger’s staff at the National Security Council in Washington, D.C. Mr. Levine retired from the For- eign Service after a 27-year career and moved back to New Bedford, where he wrote three unpublished novels that drew on his diplomatic experience. Mr. Levine’s public pursuits focused on education and lifelong learning. He served as a longtime trustee of Friends Academy, a private K-8 school, and as a library associate at the Claire T. Carney Library at the University of Massachu- setts at Dartmouth.