Leonard J. Baldyga

Leonard J. Baldyga "is Senior Consultant for Central and East European Programs at the International Research & Exchanges Board" and "is a former Director of the Office of European Affairs at the U.S. Information Agency. He retired from the foreign service in 1994 with the rank of Career Minister after more than three decades of service in Washington and overseas. As a senior officer he served as Public Affairs officer in Warsaw (1972-1975) and Mexico City (1976-1978) and Minister-Counselor for Public Affairs in Rome (1983-1988) and New Delhi (1988-1991). In Washington, he served as Deputy Director of European Affairs (Soviet Union and Eastern Europe 1979-1981) and as Director of European Affairs (1981-1983), a position he returned to again in 1992. He was USIA's principal negotiator of bilateral cultural and scientific agreements with the Soviet Bloc in the 1979-1983 period.

"Before entering the foreign service in 1962, Mr. Baldyga worked in journalism and publishing as a financial writer, city editor and assistant to the publisher. His early career assignments overseas were in Dakar, Senegal, Poznan, Poland, and Vienna, Austria, and as country affairs officer for Romania and Czechoslovakia in Washington...

"Mr. Baldyga was the recipient of the Presidential Distinguished Service Award in 1984, the Presidential Merit Service Award in 1988; the USIA Distinguished Service Award twice; and the Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Public Diplomacy from the Fletcher School in 1988. He was decorated with the Republic of Poland's Officer's Cross Order of Merit in 1994 and the Commander's Cross in 2002.

"In addition to his consultancy work, Mr. Baldyga currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Sabre Foundation (Boston); the Public Diplomacy Foundation; Partners for Democratic Change (Washington); and of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences (New York). He is a member of the Executive Committee of the National Polish-American Jewish-American Council and of the Alumni Advisory Council of the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University. He has served as a member of the editorial board of the Polish Edition of Encyclopedia Britannica." 


 * Director, Public Diplomacy Council