Charles W. Yost | |
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United States Ambassador to the United Nations | |
In office January 23, 1969 – February 25, 1971 |
|
President | Richard Nixon |
Preceded by | James Russell Wiggins |
Succeeded by | George H. W. Bush |
United States Ambassador to Morocco | |
In office August 6, 1958 – March 5, 1961 |
|
President | Dwight D. Eisenhower |
Preceded by | Cavendish W. Cannon |
Succeeded by | Philip Bonsal |
United States Ambassador to Syria | |
In office January 16, 1958 – February 22, 1958 |
|
President | Dwight D. Eisenhower |
Preceded by | James S. Moose Jr. |
Succeeded by | Raymond A. Hare (United Arab Republic) |
United States Ambassador to Laos | |
In office November 1, 1954 – April 27, 1956 |
|
President | Dwight D. Eisenhower |
Preceded by | Donald R. Heath |
Succeeded by | J. Graham Parsons |
United States Ambassador to Thailand Acting |
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In office January 5, 1946 – July 4, 1946 |
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President | Harry S. Truman |
Preceded by | Willys R. Peck |
Succeeded by | Edwin F. Stanton |
Personal details | |
Born |
Watertown, New York, U.S. |
November 6, 1907
Died | May 21, 1981 Washington, D.C., U.S. |
(aged 73)
Political party | Democratic |
Education | Princeton University (BA) |
Signature |
Charles Woodruff Yost (November 6, 1907 – May 21, 1981) was a career U.S. diplomat who was assigned as his country's representative to the United Nations from 1969 to 1971.
Yost was born in Watertown, New York, on November 6, 1907. He attended the Hotchkiss School, where he was a member of the remarkable class of 1924 that included Roswell Gilpatric, Paul Nitze, and Chapman Rose. before graduating from Princeton University in 1928. He did postgraduate studies at the École des Hautes Études International (École pratique des hautes études) in Paris. Over the next year he traveled to Geneva, Berlin, the Soviet Union (with author Croswell Bowen), Poland, Rumania, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Spain, and Vienna.
Yost joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1930 on the advice of former Secretary of State Robert Lansing, and he served in Alexandria, Egypt as a consular officer, followed by an assignment in Poland. In 1933 he left the Foreign Service to pursue a career as a freelance foreign correspondent in Europe and a writer in New York. After his marriage to Irena Rawicz-Oldakowska, he returned to the U.S. State Department in 1935, becoming assistant chief of the Division of Arms and Munitions Control in 1936. In 1941, he represented the State Department on the Policy Committee of the Board of Economic Warfare. Yost was appointed assistant chief of special research in 1942, and he was made assistant chief of the Division of Foreign Activity Correlation in 1943. In February of the next year he became executive secretary of the Department of State Policy Committee. He attended the Dumbarton Oaks Conference from August to October 1944, when he worked on Chapters VI and VII of the United Nations Charter. He then served at the United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco in April 1945 as aide to Secretary of State Edward Stettinius. In July of that year he was secretary-general of the Potsdam Conference.