Milton A. Wolf, 80; U.S. Ambassador Was Host at 1979 Arms Talks
Milton A. Wolf, 80, a former U.S. ambassador to Austria who served as a host of the 1979 SALT II arms summit in Vienna, died Thursday of complications from lymphoma at his suburban Cleveland home.
Wolf was host of the arms limitation talks where President Carter and Soviet President Leonid I. Brezhnev signed the SALT II agreement. However, the United States did not ratify the treaty after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979.
A longtime fundraiser in Democratic Party politics, Wolf worked on Carter’s 1976 campaign and served on his inauguration committee. He accepted the envoy’s job partly because of Vienna’s role as a transit point for Jewish emigrants from the Soviet Union.
A native of Cleveland, Wolf earned a bachelor’s degree from Ohio State University and a master’s degree and doctorate from what is now Case Western Reserve University. He later taught economics there.
As president of Zehman-Wolf Construction Co., he developed high-rise buildings and shopping centers in Ohio.
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