Originally a lawyer and Congressional aide, Belen was chief counsel for the House of Representatives’ post office. He apparently liked working with mail: he rose in rank to become the Deputy Postmaster General under President Lyndon Johnson, and was assigned to oversee the automation of the Post Office Department, now the U.S. Postal Service.
One of the most visible results of his work was the “Zone Improvement Plan” — routing codes for cities and towns to speed mail delivery — better known as “ZIP Codes”. As the chief architect of the ZIP Code system, in 1962 he received the Post Office’s first Benjamin Franklin Award. He died October 13 in Arlington, Va., from complications of Parkinson’s disease. He was 85.