Thomas Melady, who helped get Vatican recognition for Israel, dies

WASHINGTON -- Thomas Melady, a scholar and college president who served as a U.S. ambassador to the Vatican and was an informal liaison between Catholic leadership and top federal policymakers, died Jan. 6 at his home in Washington. He was 86.

He had brain cancer, said his wife, Margaret Badum Melady.

Thomas Melady began his career in the 1950s as an authority on emerging independence movements in Africa. He served as U.S. ambassador to the African country of Burundi before becoming ambassador to Uganda in 1972, when the country was controlled by strongman Idi Amin.

In February 1973, Melady was recalled as ambassador as a signal of protest when Amin repeatedly criticized the policies of President Richard Nixon in Vietnam. The United States did not reopen its embassy in Uganda until 1979, after Amin had been deposed.

Melady and his wife later wrote a book about Amin that was subtitled "Hitler in Africa." After serving as a president of Sacred Heart University in Connecticut, Melady re-entered the world of diplomacy in 1989, when he was named ambassador to the Vatican by President George H.W. Bush. It was a dramatic time to be in Rome, with Pope John Paul II often cited as a prime moral force behind the collapse of the communist bloc in Eastern Europe.

"We had a major interest in seeing conversion to liberty without resorting to violence," Melady told the Hartford Courant in 1993. We "worked very closely with the Holy See and the pope in these transitions to democracy."

Melady was also entrusted with a secret mission at the Vatican -- he was instructed to open quiet negotiations that would move the Vatican toward official recognition of the state of Israel.

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He worked with Jewish and Israeli representatives during his tenure as ambassador, from 1989 to 1993, and he was the direct intermediary between the president and the pope.

"In my final meeting with the pope, when I said goodbye," Melady told Fox News in 2005, "I said I came with a mission to accomplish certain things. One thing I didn't accomplish was a recognition of Israel. And he smiled at me and he said, 'Wait and see.' "

Within a year, the Vatican recognized the state of Israel and opened full diplomatic relations.

Thomas Patrick Melady was born March 4, 1927, in Norwich, Conn. After serving in the Army, he became one of the first members of his family to attend college, graduating in 1950 from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. He received a master's degree in 1952 and a doctorate in 1954, both in political science from Catholic University.

Survivors include his wife of 52 years, who is a former president of the American University of Rome, of Washington; two daughters, Christina Melady of Paris and Monica Melady Micklos of Washington; a brother; two sisters; and seven grandchildren.