embassy events 2008 

Death of Former U.S. Ambassador to Poland

William E. Schaufele Jr

Born in Lakewood, Ohio, the son of William Elias Schaufele and Lillian Bergen, he entered Yale in 1942, then enlisted in the Army in March 1943. He served in Europe with the 10th Armored Division of Patton’s Third Army, and was at Bastogne, Belgium, during the Battle of the Bulge. In 1946, Mr. Schaufele returned to Yale, where he majored in government and international affairs and graduated in 1948. He received an M.A. from the Columbia School of International Affairs in 1950.

Mr. Schaufele joined the Foreign Service in 1950. His first assignment was to Frankfurt as a “resident officer.” Later that year, he was transferred to Pfaffenhausen, and in 1952 to Augsburg and, finally, to Dusseldorf as a labor officer. A transfer to Munich as an economic and consular officer followed in 1953. He returned to Washington in 1956 to fill an economic affairs position, and was detailed to the faculty of the Foreign Service Institute in 1957. Mr. Schaufele was next posted to Casablanca in 1959 as a political/labor officer. In 1963, he opened the consulate in Bukavu (formerly Costermansville) in the newly independent, turbulent Congo. He returned to State a year later to serve as Congo desk officer, and between 1964 and 1969 held increasingly responsible positions in the Bureau of African Affairs.

In 1969, President Richard Nixon appointed Mr. Schaufele ambassador to Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso). Two years later, he was named U.S. representative to the U.N. Security Council with the rank of ambassador. After four years in New York, he became assistant secretary of State for African affairs. President Jimmy Carter named him U.S. ambassador to Poland in 1978. There he witnessed the election of Carol Cardinal Wojtila, archbishop of Krakow, as Pope John Paul II, and the rise of the Solidarity movement. Amb. Schaufele retired from the Foreign Service in 1980 with the rank of career minister. He received the Wilbur Carr Award in recognition of “a distinguished career of creative contribution to American foreign policy, of unerring execution of that policy often under crisis conditions, and of leadership that instilled in [his] subordinates a sense of pride in and dedication to the service.”

Following his retirement, Amb. Schaufele served as president of the Foreign Policy Association until January 1985. He was also director of the Institute of World Affairs in Taconic, N.Y. He is survived by his wife, Heather, of Salisbury, Conn., and two sons, Steven and Peter, and two grandchildren, Alaric and Margaret.

Foreign Service Journal, May 2008