Edward Rowny

Edward Leon Rowny was born on April 3, 1917, in Baltimore. His father, Gracyan, an immigrant from Poland, was a carpenter and contractor. His mother, the former Mary Radziszewski, was in poor health for much of his childhood, and he was raised largely by a grandmother. After receiving a degree in civil engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 1937, he entered West Point. By the time he graduated in 1941 as a second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers, World War II was underway in Europe, and soon the United States was drawn in. His war service included assignments in Africa and Italy. After the war he worked in strategic planning — examining, among other things, what the postwar Army should look like. He attended Yale, receiving master’s degrees in 1949 in international relations and civil engineering. He was then assigned to the Far East as a planning officer. When the Korean War came, he helped plan the Inchon landing in 1950 and then played a number of other roles in that conflict, including commanding an infantry regiment. He was promoted to brigadier general in 1961. General Rowny was named a negotiator in the talks that resulted in the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty signed in 1972 by President Richard M. Nixon and the Soviet leader Leonid I. Brezhnev. He was also a principal player in the next round of SALT negotiations. But when that agreement was put forward in 1979, he objected to it so strongly that he resigned from the Army after President Jimmy Carter signed it so that he could be free to speak against it. General Rowny’s first wife, the former Mary Rita Leyko, whom he married in 1941, died in 1988. He lived in Washington. In addition to Michael, his son from that marriage, he is survived by his wife, the former Elizabeth Ladd, whom he married in 1994; his daughter, Marcia Jordan, and his sons Peter, Paul and Grayson, all also from his first marriage; two stepchildren, Jon Ladd and Lyssa Ladd; 10 grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren.