July 8, 1987

The President today announced his intention to appoint Stephen J. Ledogar, of Connecticut, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Representative of the United States of America for Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions Negotiations (MBFR). He would succeed Robert Dean Blackwill. Mr. Ledogar is presently the United States Representative to the European Conventional Arms Negotiations, a secretarial appointment, and will continue in this capacity and serve concurrently and without additional compensation as the Representative of the U.S.A. to MBFR. The President also announced his intention to nominate Mr. Ledogar for the rank of Ambassador during the tenure of his service in both positions.

Before joining the Foreign Service in 1959, Mr. Ledogar was a surety claims attorney for Chubb & Son in New York City. He was assigned as a consular officer at the U.S. Consulate in Montreal, Canada, 1960 - 1962, followed by administrative officer at the U.S. Consulate in Milan, Italy, 1962 - 1964. Mr. Ledogar then became the AID provincial representative in Vietnam from 1965 to 1967, and moved as the Department of State representative, Pentagon National Military Command Center in 1967. Thereafter he was named officer in charge of pacification programs, Vietnam working group in the East Asian Bureau of the Department of State. He served there until 1969, when he went to Paris, France, as press spokesman and member of the U.S. delegation to the Paris Vietnam peace talks. From 1972 to 1973, he took senior training at Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA. From 1973 to 1976, Mr. Ledogar was deputy political advisor at our Mission to NATO in Brussels, Belgium, and returned to the State Department, 1976 - 1977, as special assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Security Assistance Programs. He became director of the Office of NATO Affairs in the Bureau of European Affairs, 1977 - 1980, and then for a year was a member of the executive seminar in national and international affairs. Since 1981 Mr. Ledogar has been deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Mission to NATO in Brussels.

Mr. Ledogar graduated from Fordham University (B.S., 1954; LL.B., 1958). He served in the United States Navy, 1949 - 1952, and the Navy Reserve, 1954 - 1960. Mr. Ledogar was born September 14, 1929, in New York, NY. He is articulate in Italian, French, and Vietnamese. Mr. Ledogar is married and has two children.

Date
07/08/1987