Celebrating 90 Years - Foreign Policy Association

William Schaufele, who was president of
the Foreign Policy Association from 1980
to 1983, died in January 2008 at 85. He
retired from the Foreign Service in 1980 with the rank
of career minister and received the Wilbur Carr Award
for his “distinguished career of creative contribution to
American foreign policy” and “unerring execution of
that policy often under crisis conditions.”
William Schaufele enlisted in the army in 1943 and
served in Europe with Patton’s Third Army. Following
World War II, he returned to his studies in government
and international affairs at Yale and received a Bachelor’s
degree in 1948. In 1950, he received a Master’s
degree from Columbia University’s School of International
Affairs. That year he joined the Foreign Service
and subsequently served as a resident and labor officer
in a number of German cities. In 1953, he took the
post of economic consular officer in Munich.
In Memoriam
William E. Schaufele, Jr.
1923-2008
Returning to Washington, D.C., in 1956, he held an
economic affairs position and joined the faculty of the
Foreign Service Institute in 1957. Two years later he
was posted as a political and labor officer in Casablanca.
In 1963, he opened the U.S. consulate in Bukavu,
shortly after Congo received independence. Returning again to Washington in 1964, he served as Congo desk officer
in the State Department and then held positions of increasing responsibility in the Bureau of African Affairs.
In 1969, William Schaufele became the U.S. ambassador to Upper Volta, later renamed Burkina Faso. Following this
posting, he served as U.S. representative to the U.N. Security Council in New York. In 1975, he was appointed assistant
secretary of state for African affairs. His final posting, under the administration of Jimmy Carter, was ambassador
to Poland in 1978. He served in Poland during the emergence of the Solidarity movement and the election of
Krakow’s archbishop, Carol Cardinal Wojtila, as Pope John Paul II.
FOREIGN POLICY ASSOCIATION | 119
IN MEMORIAM