Necrology

Charles Steinman Foltz, Jr. '31

May. 16, 1910-May. 14, 2005

Charles Steinman Foltz, Jr. ’31, a journalist who retired as senior editor of the international staff of U.S. News & World Report, was born on May 16, 1910, in Lancaster, PA. The son of Charles S., editor and publisher of the Lancaster Daily Intelligencer and News-Journal, and Josephine Kieffer Foltz, an artist, he prepared for college at Franklin and Marshall Academy and entered Hamilton in 1927. Although quickly demonstrating a talent for writing English, he was tripped up by Greek and trigonometry, which led to his leaving the Hill at the end of his freshman year. He thereafter returned to Lancaster and transferred to Franklin and Marshall College, where he applied himself more diligently and was graduated Phi Beta Kappa and with honors (but without Greek) in 1931. He later served on Franklin and Marshall’s board of trustees and was awarded an honorary doctorate of literature by that institution in 1954. However, he continued to feel indebted to Hamilton for “waking me up” and could be counted upon for contributions to its fund drives.

In 1931, Charles Foltz began his distinguished career in journalism as a cub reporter for the New York Herald Tribune. But wishing to travel and cover world news, he joined the Associated Press in 1933 and was assigned to Europe as a foreign correspondent. Based in Paris and Bern, he covered French politics and the civil war in Spain as well as international conferences. Named chief AP correspondent at the League of Nations in Geneva in 1937, he was later on hand for the Munich conference. From neutral Spain he continued to serve as a correspondent during the Second World War and concluded his career with the AP as its bureau chief in Madrid. Out of that experience came his book, The Masquerade in Spain (1948), which was highly critical of the regime of General Francisco Franco.

After the war, in 1946, Charles Foltz joined the newly launched World Report (which later became U.S. News & World Report) as its European editor. While residing in Washington, DC, he continued to travel and report extensively from abroad. Named associate editor of the news magazine’s world staff and subsequently director of its international staff, he logged interviews with heads of state or government from Tokyo to Canberra and New Delhi to Cairo. A past president of the Overseas Writers in Washington, he retired from U.S. News in 1976.

Charles S. Foltz was residing in the Georgetown section of Washington when he died on May 14, 2005, two days before his 95th birthday. Besides his wife, Susan Baker Foltz, whom he had married in 1997, he is survived by a son and daughter, Charles I. Foltz and Nancy Vest, born of his first marriage, in 1933, to Frances R. Ireland, and two grandchildren.

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