American economist, lawyer, and senior United States Department of State diplomat, U.S. Ambassador to six countries.

Laurence A. Steinhardt was born October 6, 1892, at his family home (23 East 92nd Street) in New York City. As a native New Yorker, he was educated at the Franklin School for Boys and graduated from Columbia University with an A.B in 1913, an M.A. in 1915 and an LL.B. in 1915 from Columbia Law School. He became a member of Pi Lambda Phi fraternity (New York) in 1909, National President in 1915, and Supreme Rex for life from 1939 to 1950. He was permanent treasurer of the class of 1913 and class of 1915 Columbia Law School.

He was the son of Adolph Maximillian Steinhardt (one of the founders and executive heads of National Enameling and Stamping Co.) and Addie Untermyer Steinhardt, a sister to noted lawyer Samuel Untermyer. He was a nephew of Samuel Untermyer.

He married Dulcie Yates Hofmann, daughter of Henry Hofmann (banker) and Ina Maitland Yates Hofmann, on January 15, 1923. He had one daughter, Dulcie-Ann Steinhardt Sherlock(1925–2001).

He practiced accountancy with Deloitte, Plender and Griffiths, was admitted to the New York bar in October 1915, enlisted in the U.S. Army 60th Field Artillery in 1916 as a private/sharpshooter, was honorably discharged in 1918 as a sergeant Quartermaster Corps after serving as associate counsel on the Provost Marshal General Staff. He served as counsel for the Housing and Health Division of the War Department in 1919, then joined the family law firm of Guggenheimer, Untermyer and Marshall where he practiced law until 1933. Other notable jurists and family members of Guggenheimer, Untermyer and Marshall were Samuel Untermyer, Louis B. Marshall, Charles S. Guggenheimer, Alvin Untermyer and Irwin Untermyer.

In 1932, in active support of Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt’s pre-Chicago convention presidential campaign, he joined the inner circle of the campaign executive committee, composed of political notables Louis Howe, Jimmy Farley, Frank Walker, and Ed Flynn. Specifically, with his economic background on FDR's executive finance committee, he wrote campaign speeches on the economics of the time for FDR.

He entered the U.S. diplomatic service at ambassadorial rank in 1933 at the behest of President Franklin D. Roosevelt as First Minister to Sweden (1933–1937), U.S. Ambassador to Peru (1937–1939), U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union (1939–1941), U.S. Ambassador to Turkey (1942–1945), U.S. Ambassador to Czechoslovakia (1945–1948), United States Ambassador to Canada (1948–1950). He was killed in a U.S. embassy plane crash on March 28, 1950, in Ramsayville, Ontario, Canada, while serving as U.S. Ambassador to Canada. He was the first United States Ambassador to be killed in the line of duty.

He was awarded the Order of the Polar Star in 1936 by King Gustav V of Sweden; inscribed in The Golden Book, Jewish National Fund, Jewish Agency for Palestine, 1944; awarded the United States Typhus Commission Medal in 1945 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt; awarded the Medal for Merit in 1946 by President Harry S. Truman, awarded posthumously the Honorary Doctor of Laws, Hamilton College 1950.

He was the author of numerous publications:

• Legal Status of the Trade Union, June 1915

• Medical Jurisprudence: The Rules of Law Governing the Liability of Physicians and Surgeons for Malpractice, Journal of the American Medical Association, March 2, 1918, vol. 70, pp. 585–587.

• Medical Jurisprudence: The General Rules of Law Governing the Compensation of Physician and Surgeons, July 9, 1921, vol. 77, pp. 98–100.

• The Regulation and Control of Physicians and Surgeons by Public Authority, Journal of the American Medical Association, June 4, 1927, vol, 88, pp. 1833–1835.

• The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth, 1931

Directorships: Fruit & Produce Acceptance Corp., Lessing's Inc., Louis Phillipe Inc., Leopold Stern and Sons Inc., Affiliated Products Inc., United Steel and Tube Inc., Neet Inc., G.R. Kinney & Co., Jean Patou Inc., Immac Inc., Encyclopædia Britannica Inc.,

Member of numerous organizations: American Bar Association/ Atlantic Beach Club/ Bankers Club of New York/ Bar Association of the City of New York/ Columbia University Club/ Columbia Varsity Club/ Democratic National Finance Committee/ Executive Finance Committee of the Democratic National Campaign Committee/ Federation of American Zionists and the American Zion Commonwealth/ National Democratic Club/ Member, President Roosevelt's pre-convention campaign committee/ Pi Lambda Phi

Excerpts from the forthcoming biography “Steinhardt” by his granddaughter, Laurene A. Sherlock

In 1941, immediately prior to Germany's bombing assault on Moscow and with only six hours notice, Steinhardt sent his wife, daughter and her governess, each carrying only one suitcase, out to Stockholm on one of the last planes departing with families of diplomats to any safer destinations within Europe. Steinhardt then returned his attention to the ongoing preparations to evacuate and accompany the remaining U.S. embassy staff to Kuibyshev taking seven days by train to go some 400 miles east of Moscow to this destination, designated by the Kremlin for remaining diplomats. Once the staff was situated in spartan housing with the entire stock of embassy foodstuffs brought along and sufficient to feed the greater diplomatic corps in addition to the staff, he returned to the U.S. embassy residence in Moscow during the bombings to secure the embassy with a skeleton staff of six. He was known within family circles to say he took great pride in working alongside his amazing staff in his embassy postings. In July of this period, the famed photographer, Margaret Bourke-White, managed to get into Moscow to the embassy residence so as to document the German bombings. On the nights of July 23 and July 26 she and Steinhardt lay on their backs on the roof of Spaso House while she photographed German bombs, Nazi parachute flares, tracer bullets, and anti-aircraft gunshots streaking across the nighttime sky overhead. Her portfolio assignment produced startling visual imagery for the American public in the issue of Life Magazine, Vol 11, No 9., pp. 15–21. dated September 1, 1941. 

On January 12, 1942, Steinhardt was appointed Ambassador to Turkey. His mission directives included buying up all the available sources of chrome the Nazis needed for the manufacture of steel for their war machine. Much more challenging was the deep rooted presence in Istanbul of the highest flange of German diplomats led by German Ambassador Franz von Papen whose objective was to bring Turkey into the German side of the war. Steinhardt's mission directive was to bring Turkey into the Allied side of the war. Each was crafty, intense, and possessed with the access to vast intelligence gathering network sources. Turkey was the battleground during this critical period of 1942 to 1945 as so much hung in the balance, not the least of which was Turkey's important geographic location, then and now. By 1944, Turkey had turned west to the Allies, an historical orientation originally seeded by Kemal Atatürk in 1923 to turn Turkey into a modern secular nation while still keeping its foundational character.

While Ambassador to Turkey, Steinhardt, in part due to his Jewish heritage, played a significant but not openly known role (due to his public diplomatic position) in numerous Jewish-related refugee transit evacuations: the rescue of Hungarian Jews from Bergen Belsen, Jewish children from Romania, and many eminent intellectuals fleeing Europe to find refuge in Turkey, Palestine, and the United States. In personal subterranean secret collaboration with the Vatican's representative to Turkey, Papal Nuncio Cardinal Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli (1881–1963), they devised baptismal certificates and false visa schemes to facilitate the documents needed for transit through Turkey for fleeing refugees. Steinhardt sought and won neutral Turkey’s agreement to turn a blind eye to these rescue operations. Cardinal Roncalli was elected in 1958 by Vatican conclave to Pope John XXIII and subsequently was canonized as a saint. The highest note of his papacy was Vatican II, also known as the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965).

Two Men Two Faiths

One Catholic One Jew

One Mission

The Unknown Story 

By Laurene A. Sherlock, excerpted from the memoirs of Dulcie-Ann Steinhardt Sherlock

When the doorbell rang that evening in early 1943 at the ambassador’s residence in Istanbul, the butler answered it. Ladened with an armload of red roses and a box of chocolates, there stood Archbishop Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, the Vatican Apostolic Delegate Papal Nuncio to the Turkish government. At the directive of Rome, he had taken up this post in 1934.

His dinner host that night was the United States ambassador, Laurence A. Steinhardt, who had taken up his post in early 1942 at the behest of FDR, having just completed his ambassadorship to Moscow from 1939 to the end of 1941. Turkey was his fourth of what would be six ambassadorships.

  In this diplomatic world Roncalli and Steinhardt had become close personal friends while keeping their respective governments’ wartime neutrality with Turkey. That was their public mission.

But this particular night would birth another mission, one unknown to the world from that evening to this day. Only two other people were present that night and all the further nights of these covert meetings, my grandmother, and my mother. This is my mother’s first-hand account.

 How in the middle of wartime did His Excellency find red roses for mother and chocolates for me? Such a kind face, an easy smile, and a warm countenance. There was nothing intimidating about his Excellency other than his title. In fact, he was entirely approachable. He radiated a quiet humility for a man of such stature. Little did anyone know then that God was preparing him for greater destiny. This simple man inherited the throne of St. Peter in 1958 and sainthood in 2014. He is known to history now as Saint John XXIII, Pope. 

Neutral Turkey was being overwhelmed by refugees surging across the Greek, Yugoslav and Bulgarian borders. Masses of displaced humanity swelled to escape persecution and death at the hands of the Nazi juggernaut.

We sat many evenings over wine and dinner, hatching up baptismal visa schemes to get Jewish children out of Transnistria and Romania, figuring out how to find leaky boats of any type to get these children and other refugees to Turkey and onward to Palestine. On one occasion with $10,000 provided by the United Jewish Agency in New York, father and Roncalli got 10,000 refugees from Varna rescued to Palestine. Father worked tirelessly with his Turkish colleagues sub rosa to obtain the Turkish government turning a blind eye and permitting these transit endeavors in order to allow these subterranean plans to become reality, while His Excellency did the same with the British. Dangerous diplomacy. A secret complicity was necessary to accomplish their life saving missions. These men in high position did not stand still. They did unto others what they would have had done unto them. Humanity in action. This is Faith. No one ever knew. Heroism and quiet humility often go hand in hand. But they never saw this as heroism as so often the case by those who do the right thing regardless of the consequences.

Two men of Faith, one Catholic and one Jew, united in making history together without anyone ever knowing. They could not speak for themselves then or now, not that either man was of the type that would at any time.

 So, we who come after are heralded to Remember.

Both men risked their diplomatic positions, their careers, their respective governments’ policies, their own lives, and the lives of thousands of refugees were any of their unknown actions ever revealed.

 For this and more unknowns father was inscribed into The Golden Book of Israel, joining the only other American at that time so inscribed, his boss President Roosevelt.  And Cardinal Roncalli was called by The Almighty, his boss, to assume the Vicar’s chair.

Two men, two faiths, one Catholic, One Jew, One mission.

   In other quarters in 1944, Steinhardt and Ira Hirschmann, representative of The U.S. War Refugee Board, operated in coordination to secure leaky boats wherever possible to transit the refugees with no assurance of the safety of such vessels but the hope that anything might succeed if tried. While there were successes, sadly there were also tragedies and losses. Such was the risk to all.

……………………………………………

For further reading about Holocaust rescue, please visit HolocaustRescue.org