Maurice Marshall Bernbaum, 98, a career Foreign Service officer who served as ambassador to Ecuador and Venezuela, died March 9 in his home at the Collington Episcopal Life Care Community in Mitchellville. He had cerebrovascular disease and dementia.

He was appointed ambassador to Ecuador in 1960 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and reappointed by President John F. Kennedy. During his four years in Ecuador, Ambassador Bernbaum oversaw issues related to Ecuador's disputes with Peru over borders and with the United States over tuna fishing rights.

He also dealt with two Ecuadoran presidents, both overthrown in coups, and the military government that followed them. He accompanied President Carlos Julio Arosamena on an official state visit to meet with Kennedy in Washington.

In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him ambassador to Venezuela, and he spent much of his four years in Caracas dealing with problems with petroleum and Venezuelan resentments over preferential treatment for Canada. He played a key role in averting a war between Venezuela and neighboring Guyana.

Ambassador Bernbaum was born in Chicago and was a 1931 magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College. He was a social worker briefly in Chicago and then was employed by the Treasury Department and the Tariff Commission in Washington.

He joined the Foreign Service in 1936, and his first posting was as vice consul in Vancouver, followed by Singapore in 1939. While serving in Singapore, he took the initiative, for which he was later reprimanded, of granting visas to the Philippines to a shipload of Jewish refugees. The move saved many lives, his family said.

From 1945 to 1950, he was in Nicaragua and Ecuador. In Managua, Nicaragua, he helped prevent the United States from recognizing a government installed in a coup by the dictator Anastasio Samoza. In Quito, Ecuador, he and his wife survived a whirlpool in a jungle river after a dugout canoe they were in capsized.

Back in the United States, he worked on a detail at the United Nations with Eleanor Roosevelt and handled north and west coast affairs for Latin America at the State Department. He also attended the National War College.

While director of South American affairs at the State Department in the mid-1950s, he incurred the displeasure of Vice President Richard M. Nixon on a trip with him to South America. Nixon was stoned by student protesters in Lima, Peru, and harassed in a motorcade in Caracas.

The ambassador's other assignments included Buenos Aires, Argentina, before he retired as career minister in 1969.

He was a member of the International Club and served as the president of DACOR (Diplomatic and Consular Officers, Retired) Bacon House from 1981 to 1983. He also was a member of the Cosmos Club.

He and his wife moved from their home in Bethesda to live at the Maplewood Park Place retirement community, where he started and ran a popular current affairs discussion group. In 2003, he moved to Mitchellville.

His wife, Elizabeth "Betty" Bernbaum, whom he married in 1942, died in 2003.

Survivors include two children, Dr. Edwin Bernbaum of Berkley, Calif., and Marcia Bernbaum of Washington; a sister; a brother; and four grandchildren.

--- Washington Post -- Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb

Maurice Marshall Bernbaum, 98, a career Foreign Service officer who served as ambassador to Ecuador and Venezuela, died March 9 in his home at the Collington Episcopal Life Care Community in Mitchellville. He had cerebrovascular disease and dementia.

He was appointed ambassador to Ecuador in 1960 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and reappointed by President John F. Kennedy. During his four years in Ecuador, Ambassador Bernbaum oversaw issues related to Ecuador's disputes with Peru over borders and with the United States over tuna fishing rights.

He also dealt with two Ecuadoran presidents, both overthrown in coups, and the military government that followed them. He accompanied President Carlos Julio Arosamena on an official state visit to meet with Kennedy in Washington.

In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him ambassador to Venezuela, and he spent much of his four years in Caracas dealing with problems with petroleum and Venezuelan resentments over preferential treatment for Canada. He played a key role in averting a war between Venezuela and neighboring Guyana.

Ambassador Bernbaum was born in Chicago and was a 1931 magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College. He was a social worker briefly in Chicago and then was employed by the Treasury Department and the Tariff Commission in Washington.

He joined the Foreign Service in 1936, and his first posting was as vice consul in Vancouver, followed by Singapore in 1939. While serving in Singapore, he took the initiative, for which he was later reprimanded, of granting visas to the Philippines to a shipload of Jewish refugees. The move saved many lives, his family said.

From 1945 to 1950, he was in Nicaragua and Ecuador. In Managua, Nicaragua, he helped prevent the United States from recognizing a government installed in a coup by the dictator Anastasio Samoza. In Quito, Ecuador, he and his wife survived a whirlpool in a jungle river after a dugout canoe they were in capsized.

Back in the United States, he worked on a detail at the United Nations with Eleanor Roosevelt and handled north and west coast affairs for Latin America at the State Department. He also attended the National War College.

While director of South American affairs at the State Department in the mid-1950s, he incurred the displeasure of Vice President Richard M. Nixon on a trip with him to South America. Nixon was stoned by student protesters in Lima, Peru, and harassed in a motorcade in Caracas.

The ambassador's other assignments included Buenos Aires, Argentina, before he retired as career minister in 1969.

He was a member of the International Club and served as the president of DACOR (Diplomatic and Consular Officers, Retired) Bacon House from 1981 to 1983. He also was a member of the Cosmos Club.

He and his wife moved from their home in Bethesda to live at the Maplewood Park Place retirement community, where he started and ran a popular current affairs discussion group. In 2003, he moved to Mitchellville.

His wife, Elizabeth "Betty" Bernbaum, whom he married in 1942, died in 2003.

Survivors include two children, Dr. Edwin Bernbaum of Berkley, Calif., and Marcia Bernbaum of Washington; a sister; a brother; and four grandchildren.

--- Washington Post -- Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb