New London, N.H. —
Jack was born July 13, 1945, in Chicago, the son of John E. and Marguerite (Phillips) Harrod. He was educated in the Chicago public schools and first attended Grinnell (Iowa) College and then transferred to Colgate (N.Y.) University, from which he received a bachelor’s degree in Russian Area Studies in 1966. He subsequently completed two years of graduate study in the same field at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and spent a summer session in Russian language study at Moscow State University. He was fluent in Russian, Polish and French, and had a working knowledge of Dutch.
He joined the Foreign Service and USIA in 1968. His initial overseas assignments included Kabul, Afghanistan; Poznan, Poland; and two tours of duty in the former Soviet Union, where he played a key role with several American cultural exchange exhibitions and served as press attaché at the American Embassy in Moscow. It was during the first one of those exhibitions that he met Dolores (Dolly) Foley, of Manchester, N.H. The two were wed in Kabul in 1971.
From 1979 to 1981, Jack was a member of the State Department’s Iran Hostage task force, where he served as a media spokesman and a liaison with the four USIA families of hostages. In 1982 to 1983 he received a Congressional Fellowship from the American Political Science Association, which enabled him to work with Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and Congressman Jim Leach of Iowa.
From 1984 to 1992 Jack was in charge of USIA operations in Warsaw, Poland, and then Brussels, Belgium. His final assignment was as director of USIA’s Office of West European and Canadian Affairs, where he oversaw U.S. public affairs operations in 24 countries or multilateral organizations, with a total budget of over $65 million. In that capacity, he was the recipient of USIA’s highest recognition, the Distinguished Honor Award.
Following his retirement in 1996, Jack was the senior consultant to the Public Diplomacy Foundation and served on the boards of several educational and philanthropic organizations, including the Center for Belarusian Studies in Winfield, KS and the Monnet-Madison Institute in Cambridge, Mass. From 1999 to 2003 he accompanied his wife on her assignment for the U.S. Department of Commerce at the American Embassy in Ottawa, Canada. They moved to New London in 2003. Jack served on several New London town advisory panels and was chairman of the town Energy Committee for three years and vice chairman and later acting chairman of the town’s Democratic Party committee.
Jack was predeceased by his parents and by his wife Dolly, who died in November 2006. He is survived by his son, William, of Seattle, Wash., his sister, Susan Harrod, of Ashford, Conn., and her husband Dan Donahue, a niece Nancy Rosenberg and her husband Michael Owen and their daughters Alexa and Hannah Owen, and a niece Jane Rosenberg and her husband John Kern and their children Madelyn and Kenneth Kern. Pursuant to his wishes, there will be no service and interment will be private.
Memorial donations may be made to the Congressional Fellowship Program, c/o American Political Science Assn., 1527 New Hampshire Ave. N.W., Washington, DC 20036.
For online expressions of sympathy to the family, please visit www.chadwickfuneralservice.com.