Obituaries

Leonard Filson ParkinsonLobbyist

Leonard Filson Parkinson, 69, a lobbyist for Aerojet Corp. and a former CIA analyst, died March 31 of pancreatic cancer at his home in McLean.

Mr. Parkinson was born in Scott City, Kan., and was a 1959 history graduate of the University of Kansas. Awarded a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, he attended graduate school at the University of Washington, receiving a master's degree in political science in 1960.

At the Central Intelligence Agency, which he joined in 1961, he was a Soviet political and military analyst for the Special Research Staff, a branch chief in the Office of Strategic Research and a special representative to the Mutual and Balanced Force Reduction Talks.

A member of the Army Reserve, Mr. Parkinson was part of the 226th Military Intelligence Detachment, which was mobilized in response to the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. After demobilization in 1962, he joined the CIA's reserve unit, serving until his discharge as a first lieutenant in 1967.

After retiring from the CIA in 1976, he was awarded a sabbatical with the Congressional Fellowship Program of the American Political Science Association. He later served three years on the staff of Sen. Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.), working primarily on legislation that came before the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Defense Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

In 1981, he became director of government relations for the Atlantic Research Corp. He retired in 2003 but continued to work part time as ARC's rocket propulsion advocate for the PAC-3 missile defense system, the Minuteman III ICBM and the Trident II D5 missile. The company was acquired in 2003 by Aerojet, which retained Mr. Parkinson as a part-time lobbyist.

He was a member of the board of directors of the American Political Science Association's Congressional Fellowship Program and belonged to the Association of the U.S. Army, Air Force Association, Navy League and Lions International. In the 1980s and 1990s, he was a Cub Scout and Boy Scout leader.

Mr. Parkinson also was a sculptor in metal and stone. He studied under the late Constantine L. Seferlis, a master stone carver known for his work at the National Cathedral and other Washington area sites.

Mr. Parkinson was most proud of an Indian limestone bust he carved of Albert Einstein, a personal hero. He had hoped to finish stone busts of two other heroes, Charles Darwin and Samuel Filson, his maternal grandfather. More recently, he had been focusing on metal works, with busts of his late son, his daughter and daughter-in-law, as well as U.S. soldiers in Iraq, horses and wildlife on his western Kansas farm.

His son, Scott Edward Parkinson, died in 2004.

Survivors include his wife of 44 years, Judith Gorton Parkinson of McLean; a daughter, Jennifer Parkinson Lawner of Baltimore; and a sister.