Vienna-Born Bloch a 30-Year Career Diplomat : Envoy Worked Way Up Through Ranks

Felix S. Bloch, the Vienna-born State Department official suspected of passing secrets to the Soviets, joined the Foreign Service soon after he was graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and worked his way up through the ranks in the department.

Now a scholarly, white-haired man, Bloch rose steadily over a 30-year career to become the United States’ second-ranking official in Austria by 1984. He--rather than the ambassador or another high-ranking official--was sent to attend the inauguration of President Kurt Waldheim when the United States wanted to show its displeasure with Waldheim, who had been linked with Nazi war crimes.

Both neighbors and colleagues of Bloch said they were shocked at reports that he is suspected of spying. “I thought the people were protecting him because he was supposed to become an ambassador,” said neighbor Preston Pitts, referring to agents who have been watching Bloch’s apartment.

“This is more than surprising,” said James R. Bullington, who headed a senior Foreign Service seminar in which Bloch participated two years after leaving the embassy in Austria. “I’m flabbergasted.”

Bloch was “like most senior Foreign Service officers,” Bullington said, “pretty much a pragmatist, not much of an ideologue.”

Bullington said that Bloch was one of the leaders of his seminar class in economic affairs and appeared to be a serious student of European affairs. Though not an athlete, Bloch participated good-humoredly in “Outward Bound”-style challenges that the class did together, Bullington said.

“I couldn’t have been more amazed at hearing the news,” added another colleague, a former ambassador.

Pitts described Bloch as “very quiet, a charming gentleman,” and his wife, Lucille, as “a very nice lady.”

“I’m flabbergasted,” he said. “Yesterday morning, I chatted with both of them. I said, ‘Are you all right?’ And he said, ‘Yes, we’re fine.’ ”

Pitts said that the Blochs were “not social in this building. They did not have a lot of friends.”

Bloch, whose accent bore no trace of his Vienna upbringing, took over a year ago as head of the State Department’s Office of Regional Political-Economic Affairs in the Bureau of European and Canadian Affairs. In that post, Bloch focused mainly on U.S. relations with the Economic Community, officials said.

Bloch wrote the cover story in the July/August issue of the Foreign Service Journal, the monthly magazine of the American Foreign Service Assn., the professional organization of U.S. diplomats.

It is titled “The European Community: Managing the U.S.-E.C. Relationship.” It addresses the institutions in the European Community and the reasons the organization has been frequently misunderstood by Americans. It argues that U.S. diplomats need to understand better how the community operates to take full advantage of future opportunities.

“We are observing something new on the European Continent. . . . Cold War Europe was too hostile and dangerous to exist indefinitely. Rather than returning to some bygone era, a new Europe is assuming its place on the world stage along with the emerging Pacific Rim and, perhaps, with radically altered Communist countries,” his article says.

Bloch’s appointment to the European affairs office marked the culmination of a State Department career that began when Bloch joined the Foreign Service in 1958. He quickly became an intelligence research specialist and developed an expertise in both economics and European affairs.

Bloch moved on to posts at the U.S. Embassy in Venezuela and at its consulates in West Germany but spent much of his early career working as an economist within the department and earning a master’s degree in economics, according to State Department records.

Colleagues say he spent at least two tours of duty in Vienna, the last of which ended in 1987 after then-Ambassador Ronald Lauder concluded that he had developed exceedingly close ties to the Austrian government.

Bloch celebrated his 54th birthday last week. He and his wife have a daughter, Kathleen Bloch Swenson.

Times staff writer Lori Silver contributed to this article.