Edward Streator (born Edward Streator, Jr., on December 12, 1930, New York City) is an American diplomat.[1] He was the 1991 winner of the Benjamin Franklin Medal for his significant contribution to global affairs through co-operation and collaboration between the United States and the United Kingdom.[2] The Royal Society of Arts called him "a global ‘big thinker’."[2]
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Streator attended Princeton University, graduating from there in 1952 with a bachelor's degree.[1] He served four years as a lieutenant in the United States Navy.[1]
Streator served as a career United States Foreign Service officer, starting in 1956, with postings in Addis Ababa (1958–1960), Lomé (1960–1962), Bureau of Intelligence and Research (1962–1964), and as a staff assistant to the Secretary of State (1964–1966).[1] He was an adviser to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for over ten years: in Paris (1966–1968), in Brussels (1968–1969), in Washington (1969 to 1975), and finally as deputy chief of mission and Deputy United States Permanent Representative to NATO in Brussels (1975 to 1977).[1] He was deputy chief of mission in London from 1977 to 1984.[1]
Streator served as the United States ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.[1][3] He was nominated by President Ronald Reagan for that position on July 28, 1984.[1] He succeeded Abraham Katz.[1]
In 1957, Streator married Priscilla Kenney, the daughter of W. John Kenney, former Under Secretary of the Navy and chief operating officer of the Marshall Plan under President Harry S Truman, at the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, popularly known as the Washington National Cathedral.[4] They had three children, who in 1981 donated to St. John's Church Lafayette Square a stained glass window in his honor.[5] His daughter Elinor had a society wedding in 1986.[6] A lifelong Episcopalian, he served as a member of the vestry to St. John's Episcopal Church.[5] His mother-in-law, Elinor, died in 1991, and his father-in-law, W. John Kenney, died in 1992.[7]
Streator served on several prestigious civic boards after his service as a diplomat. Streator is on the board of overseers of the Whitehead School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University.[8] He is chairman of the New Atlantic Initiative, "a network of policy institutes and individuals," which is affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute.[3] As part of his work for New Atlantic Initiative, he attended a conference in Prague in 1996 about the Atlantic alliance.[9] He was a member of the Founding Council of the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford and also serves on The Train Foundation (formerly the Northcote Parkinson Fund) Board of Trustees, which awards the Civil Courage Prize annually.[10]
After his diplomatic service, Streator retired to Condom, France, where, according to the New York Times, he lived in "a magnificently restored country house a few miles outside town."[11]