Frederick Valdemar Peterson

(1903-1983) born at Oakland, Burt County, and lived at Wayne, Elgin, and Lincoln. Educator, newspaper publisher, politician, federal agency official, ambassador, was an aide to U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower, and first federal civil defense administrator from 1953 to 1957, followed by appointment as U.S. Ambassador to Denmark until 1961, and later to Finland from 1969 to 1973, where he prepared for the successful first Strategic Arms Limitation Talks; previously he served three two-year terms as governor of Nebraska from 1947 to 1953, and vigorously supported the Pick-Sloan Missouri River dam-building plan and worked for land and water resources development. Consult Current Biography (1949) 478-480 and Sunday /Omaha/ World Herald Magazine, December 15, 1946, pp. C-3, C-16 and June 5, 1960, pp. 4, 21 and Lincoln Evening Journal, April 26, 1973, p. 11 and obituaries in New York Times, October 18, 1983, p. D-31 and Omaha World Herald, October 18, 1983, p. 2.

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