Donald C. Leidel

Donald Charles Leidel (August 31, 1927 - April 19, 2018 Sarasota, Florida) was a Career Foreign Service Officer who served as American Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Bahrain from 1983 until 1986.

Leidel was raised in Madison, Wisconsin, and he practiced law there after he graduated from law school in 1951.He was recruited to join the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and spent eleven years with them which included three years with the Air Force.He went on to spent thirty years with the State Department, retiring in 1994.

Leidel graduated from Madison East High School.He attended University of Wisconsin, majoring in political science and minoring in history and graduated from their Law School.

A law school friend encouraged Leidel to interview for the CIA after seeing a flier in school. The friend insisted that the interview would be a good experience for Leidel when he went on to interview at law firms. They were both offered “employment as GS9 and 4,800 dollars a year in Washington, D.C. ... about 1,500 dollars more than the top law graduates were being offered in law firms.“. But for Leidel, Washington, DCwas the clincher, even though he decided to keep his Bar membership in case it did not work out.