By Matt Schudel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 22, 2005; Page B06

Jean Ulman Friendly, 90, who was president of a family foundation that oversaw a fellowship program for international journalists, as well as a social activist, philanthropist and longtime Washington hostess, died Jan. 21 of pneumonia at her Georgetown home.

Mrs. Friendly, a native Washingtonian, directed a foundation named for her husband, the late Alfred Friendly, a former managing editor of The Washington Post. Since 1984, the Alfred Friendly Press Fellowships have placed more than 220 young journalists from developing countries in U.S. newsrooms, including The Post's. The journalists typically train for five-month periods, learning American standards of reporting and editing, before returning to their homelands.

In a 1990 letter to The Post criticizing the imprisonment in Kenya of editor Gitobu Imanyara, who was a Friendly Fellow, Mrs. Friendly pointed out the importance of a free press in building democratic institutions throughout the world.

"His arrest," she wrote, "remains a sign of how imperiled those institutions are and how much they need defenders as patriotic, brave and eloquent as he."

As her name suggested, Mrs. Friendly epitomized an earlier time when the Washington worlds of politics, diplomacy and journalism were more collegial. She and her husband gave an annual Christmas Eve party at their home in Georgetown.

Over the years, many prominent figures gathered at her dinner table. Her son, Jonathan Friendly, recalled seeing former CIA director Allen Dulles at their house, as well as congressmen, journalists, scholars and ambassadors from many nations.

"I remember having Adlai Stevenson over to play tennis," Jonathan Friendly said.

Mrs. Friendly, who had a vacation home near the Turkish town of Side for many years, became very fond of Turkey and its people. An amateur archaeologist, she participated in excavations and helped supervise the restoration of an ancient Greek temple to Apollo.

Jean Ulman Friendly was born in her grandmother's house on Wyoming Avenue NW. She graduated from the Madeira School, briefly attended George Washington University and then worked as a clerk in the Government Accounting Office and as a model at Woodward & Lothrop department store.

When she was 16, she accompanied her 75-year-old grandmother to Canada during Prohibition. Together, they smuggled a carload of champagne into the United States in her grandmother's Pierce-Arrow.

In 1937, she married Alfred Friendly, then a reporter for the Washington Daily News. In 1948 and 1949, they lived in France, where her husband was an aide to W. Averell Harriman, who supervised the Marshall Plan in Europe.

Alfred Friendly was managing editor of The Washington Post from 1955 to 1965. In 1966, he was dispatched to London as a foreign correspondent for The Post, winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1968 for his coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

"My mother was his chauffeur for the Six-Day War," her son said.

The Friendlys lived in London and Turkey until the late 1970s, when they returned to Washington. Alfred Friendly died in 1983.

With her husband, Mrs. Friendly established a fund for Turkish students to study in the United States. She received several honors from the Turkish government for her restoration work and philanthropy, and in the 1990s she donated her house in Turkey to the University of Pennsylvania's archaeology department.

A lifelong Democrat, Mrs. Friendly promoted home rule for the District of Columbia as early as the 1950s, 20 years before it was granted by Congress. She worked for Harriman's short-lived 1952 presidential effort, and in 1956 she campaigned for Stevenson.

In the 1950s, she helped found the Foreign Student Service Council, an organization to bring international students to Washington. She was a longtime supporter of Planned Parenthood and, in 2002, received its Emily K.E. Bradley Volunteer Leadership award as a "champion of choice."

She maintained close ties with the Friendly Press Fellowships, personally reviewing applications until about two years ago. Each year, she invited the fellows to a dinner party at her house to introduce them to one another and to Washington.

Among her pastimes were dancing and playing bridge.

In a 1989 interview with Katharine Graham for the Washington Post Co. chairman's autobiography, "Personal History," Mrs. Friendly said her husband once wanted to eliminate the daily horoscope from the newspaper. But Mrs. Friendly argued against it, reminding him that when they were dating, her horoscope once read: "Accept friendly overtures." The Post still carries a horoscope.

In addition to Jonathan Friendly of Bradenton, Fla., survivors include four other children, Alfred Friendly Jr., Nicholas Friendly and Lucinda Murphy, all of Washington, and Victoria Friendly of Winston-Salem, N.C.; 16 grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.