Charles Woodruff Yost

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Charles W. Yost (born in Watertown, N.Y., on November 6, 1907; died in Washington, D.C., in May 1981) was a career U.S. diplomat who was assigned as his country's representative to the United Nations from 1969 to 1971.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Career Timeline 3 Activities 4 Awards 5 Oral History Interviews 6 Books 7 Appearances Before Senate Foreign Relations Committee 8 Magazine Articles by CWY 9 CWY Online 10 Recordings 11 References 12 Archives 13 Foreign Relations of the U.S. with References to CWY

[edit] Biography

Charles Yost was born in Watertown, New York, on November 6, 1907. He attended Hotchkiss School — with Paul Nitze, Paul Warnke, and Roswell Gilpatric — before graduating from Princeton University in 1928. He did postgraduate studies at the École des Hautes Études International in Paris. Over the next year he traveled to Geneva, Berlin, the Soviet Union, 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 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.

Yost was reinstated in the Foreign Service, and in late 1945 he was political adviser to U.S. Lieutenant General Raymond Albert Wheeler on the staff of Lord Louis Montbatten in Kandy, Ceylon. He then became chargé d'affaires in Thailand. Throughout the late 1940s and the 1950s, his assignments took him to Czechoslovakia, Austria (twice), and Greece. In 1954, he was named minister to Laos, and he became the first United States ambassador there a year later. In 1957, he was minister counselor in Paris. At the end of the same year he was named ambassador to Syria. Shortly after his appointment, Syria and Egypt formed the United Arab Republic, and the U.S. was asked to close its embassy in Syria. Yost was then sent as ambassador to Morocco in 1958.

In 1961, he began his first assignment at the United Nations as the deputy to Ambassador Adlai Stevenson. After Stevenson's death in 1965, Yost stayed on as deputy to Ambassador Arthur Goldberg. Yost was promoted to career ambassador, the highest professional Foreign Service rank, before resigning from the Foreign Service in 1966 to begin his career as a writer, at the Council on Foreign Relations, and as a teacher, at Columbia University.

In 1969, President Richard Nixon called Yost out of retirement to become the permanent United States representative to the United Nations. He resigned in 1971 and returned to writing, at the Brookings Institution, and teaching at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service.

Yost set forth his views in a syndicated newspaper column, for the Christian Science Monitor, and in four books — The Age of Triumph and Frustration: Modern Dialogues, The Insecurity of Nations, The Conduct and Misconduct of Foreign Relations, and History and Memory.

In 1979, Yost was co-chairman of Americans for SALT II, a group that lobbied the Senate for passage of the second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty. He was a trustee of the American University in Cairo, Egypt, and director of the Aspen Institute for cultural exchanges with Iran. He took part in the unofficial Dartmouth Conferences of United States and Soviet scholars. In 1973, he was named head of the National Committee on United States-China Relations; he visited the People's Republic of China in 1973 and 1977.

Yost died of cancer in May 1981 at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C.

His papers are at Princeton University Library. Dept. of Rare Books and Special Collections under call number MC193.

[edit] Career Timeline

• 1930: Vice Consul Alexandria, Egypt
• 1932: Vice Consul Warsaw, Poland
• 1933: Resigned from the Foreign Service. Became journalist
• 1935: Resettlement Administration
• 1935: Divisional Assistant, U.S. State Department; Assistant Chief Division of Arms and Munitions Control
• 1939: Assistant Chief Division of Controls
• 1941: Assistant Chief Division of Exports and Defense Aid
• 1941-42: Designated to act in Liaison between Division of European Affairs of State Department and British Empire Division of the Board of Economic Warfare
• 1942: Assistant Chief, Division of Special Research; Division of European Affairs
• 1943: Office of Foreign Economic Coordination
• 1943-44: Assistant Chief, Division of Foreign Activity Correlation
• 1944:
  • 1) Executive Secretary, Department of State Policy Committee
  • 2) Executive Secretary, Joint Secretariat of Executive Staff Commission
  • 3) Department of State. Assistant to the Chairman for the Dumbarton Oaks Conference
• 1945:
  • 1) Assistant to the Chairman, U.S. Delegation to the United Nations Conference on International Organizations, San Francisco
  • 2) Secretary-General, U.S. Delegation, Berlin Conference Potsdam Agreement
  • 3) Assigned as U.S. Political Advisor to General Wheeler, the Commanding General of the India-Burma Theater, India & Ceylon
  • 4) Assigned as U.S. Political Advisor to General Thomas Terry, Commander of the American India-Burma Theater
• 1946:
  • 1) Chargé d’affairs, Bangkok, Thailand
  • 2) Political Advisor to U.S. Delegation, United Nations, Lake Success, New York
  • 3) General Assembly to the United Nations, New York
• 1947: First Secretary & Counselor, Prague, Czechoslovakia
• 1947-49: First Secretary & Counselor of Legation, Vienna, Austria
• 1949:
  • 1) Member of U.S. Delegation; Special Assistant to Ambassador at Large for Sixth Session of the Council of Foreign Ministers Meeting, Paris, France
  • 2) Member of Delegation to Fourth Regular Session of GA of UN as Special Assistant to Ambassador at Large
  • 3) Director of the Office of Eastern European Affairs
• 1950:
  • 1) Special Assistant to Ambassador at Large, Deputy Policy Advisor to the U.S. Delegation to the United Nations, New York
  • 2) European Affairs Rep. on Policy Comm. on Immigration and Naturalization
  • 3) Policy Planning Staff
• 1950-53: Counselor with Personal rank of Minister, Athens, Greece
• 1953: Deputy High Commissioner & Deputy Chief of Mission, Vienna, Austria
• 1954: Minister, Vientiane, Laos
• 1955-1956: Ambassador, Laos
• 1956: Minister, Paris, France
• 1957-58: Ambassador, Damascus, Syria
• 1958:
  • 1) Foreign Affairs Specialist, Policy Planning Staff
  • 2) Named Career Minister
• 1958-61: Ambassador, Rabat, Morocco
• 1961-66: U.S. Deputy Representative to the United Nations with Adlai Stevenson
• 1962: Doctor of Laws - St. Lawrence University
• 1964: Named Career Ambassador
• 1965: U.S. Deputy Representative to the United Nations with Arthur Goldberg
• 1966:
  • 1) Bureau of Near East & South Asian Affairs, State Department
  • 2) Chairman, United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE), Delegation, New Delhi (March)
  • 3) Resigned from the Foreign Service
• 1966-69: Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations
• 1967:
  • 1) Consultant to the State Department, member of the Panel of Advisers on Near East, South Asian and International Organizations
  • 2) President Johnson's Special Envoy to the Middle East (May-June)
• 1969-71:
  • U.S. Representative to the United Nations, New York ^[1]. President of the Security Council
• 1970-80: Member of the Dartmouth Conference Delegation
• 1971:
  • 1) Resigned from the Foreign Service
  • 2) Professor at Columbia University's School of International Affairs
• 1971-73: Counselor to UN Association
• 1973-75: President, National Committee on US-China Relations
• 1975-81: Chairman, National Committee on US-China Relations
• 1975:
  • 1) Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution
  • 2) Professor at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University
• 1976-81: Special Advisor, Aspen Institute
• 1977: Woodcock delegation to Vietnam.
• 1979: Co-chairman Americans for SALT Strategic Arms Limitation Talks

[edit] Activities

• Syndicated columnist for the Christian Science Monitor ^[2]
• Trustee of the American University in Cairo
• Member of the Council on Foreign Relations
• American Academy Political and Social Science
• American Society International Law
• Princeton Club
• University Club
• Century Association
• Honorary Co-Chairman UN Association of U.S. America
• International House New York City-Chairman of the Board
• American Philosophical Society
• Chairman of the National Advertising Review Board (1971)

[edit] Awards

• Hotchkiss Man of the Year
• 1958: Appointed Career Minister
• 1964: Appointed Career Ambassador
• 1974: Awarded The Foreign Service Cup
• Honorary Degree, Princeton University
• Honorary Degree, St. Lawrence University
• Honorary Doctor of Laws, Hamilton College
• Honorary Doctor of Social Science, University of Louisville
• Rockefeller Public Service Award

[edit] Oral History Interviews

• Interview with Charles Yost by Dr. Thomas Soapes - Oral Historian, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library (September 13, 1978)
• Oral History Interview with Charles W. Yost by Sheldon Stern – JFK Library (Washington, DC, October 23, 1978)

[edit] Books

• The Age of Triumph and Frustration: Modern Dialogues
• The Insecurity of Nations: International Relations in the Twentieth Century
• The Conduct and Misconduct of Foreign Affairs
• History & Memory

[edit] Appearances Before Senate Foreign Relations Committee

• Executive Sessions of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (Historical Series), Vol. X, Eighty-Fifth Congress, Second Session, 1958: Statement and questioning of CWY to be Ambassador to Morocco
• Executive Session, Tuesday, February 7, 1961: Nomination of CWY to be Deputy U.S. Representative, Security Council, United Nations
• United States Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Tuesday , January 21, 1969: Nomination of CWY to be U.S. Representative to the UN

[edit] Magazine Articles by CWY

• “Israelis and the Arabs: The Myth that Blocks Peace – Atlantic, 1969 ^[3]
• “Last Chance for Peace in the Mideast” Life Magazine
• “The Arab-Israeli War: How It Began”, Foreign Affairs, Jan., 1968
• “World Order and American Responsibility”, Foreign Affairs, Oct., 1968
• "A Letter to a Soviet Friend", Life Magazine, September 24, 1971
• “Toward Peace in the Middle East: Report of a Study Group, The Brookings Institute, 1975
• “National and Collective Responsibility: The Governance of International Affairs”, Aspen Institute ‘Wye Paper’, 1981
• BCSIA, Volume 6, Number 3, Winter 1981/82 "Commentary: The Governance of International Affairs"

[edit] CWY Online

• On Jerusalem ^[4]

[edit] Recordings

• JFK Library: President's Office Files, Presidential Recordings, tape # 49 (Cuban Missile Crisis)

• Radio Interview with Larry King (Washington, DC, 11/11/80)

• Interview with Charles W. Yost by Charley Holmes (United Nations, 1964)

[edit] References

1. ^ Old Faces and New - TIME
2. ^ The Christian Science Monitor | Daily Online Newspaper
3. ^ 1969: The myths that block peace | From Occupied Palestine
4. ^ The United States' position on Jerulsalem as stated by its ambassador

• On Laos
  • “Some Left on Stretchers, Others on Straightjackets” - Yale Richmond (Foreign Service Journal, May 1988)
  • “Ah! La Vie en Vientiane” - James F. Prosser (CANDOER, January 2001)
  • Meeker, Oden - The Little World of Laos (Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1959)
  • Menger, Matt J. - In the Valley of the Mekong: An American in Laos (Paterson, NJ St Anthony Guild Press 1970)
• On Thailand
  • “Staying Behind in Bangkok: The OSS and American Intelligence in Postwar Thailand” - E. Bruce Reynolds (The Journal of Intelligence History 2, Winter 2002)
  • McDonald, Alexander – Bangkok Editor (MacMillan, 1949)
  • Thailand's Secret War: OSS, SOE and the Free Thai Underground During World War II - E. Bruce Reynolds [1]
  • “Democracy, Elections and Internal Security: U.S. Policy Toward Laos in the Late 1950s” - Koji Terachi (Rutger’s University)
• On Vietnam
  • Hass, Richard (editor), O’Sullivan, Meghan L. (editor) - Honey and Vinegar: Incentives, Sanctions, and Foreign Policy (Brookings Institution Press 2000) Chapter 8-The United States and Vietnam: Road to Normalization - Brown, Frederick Z.
• On Syria
  • " Cold War and Covert Action: The U.S. and Syria, 1945-1958" Middle East Journal, Winter 1990
• On the UN
  • Walton, Richard J. – The Remnants of Power: The Tragic Last Years of Adlai Stevenson (Coward-McCann, Inc., 1968)
  • Beschloss, Michael - Reaching for Glory: Lyndon Johnson’s Secret White House Tapes, 1964-1965 (Touchtone, Simon & Schuster, New York, 2001)
  • Finger, Seymour Maxwell - American Ambassadors at the UN: People, Politics, and Bureaucracy in Making Foreign Policy (UNITAR, 1992)
  • McKeever, Porter – Adlai Stevenson: His Life and Legacy (William Morrow and Company, 1989)
  • Martin, John Bartlow – Adlai Stevenson and the World (Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1978)
  • May, Ernest R.& Zelikow, Philip D. Editors –The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis – (The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1997)
  • Ambassador Christopher H. Phillips, Association for Diplomatic Studies, Foreign Affairs Oral History Program, Georgetown University
  • United States Ambassador to the United Nations – William C. Moore (Hotchkiss Alumni News, April, 1969)
  • Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Cold War International History Project. Russian Documents on the Cuban Missile Crisis/14 September-21 October 1962
  • Johnson, Walter Editor – The Papers of Adlai Stevenson: Ambassador to the United Nations, Volume VIII, 1961-1965 (Little, Brown and Company, 1979)
  • May, Ernest R.& Zelikow, Philip D. Editors –The Presidential Recordings: John F. Kennedy, The Great Crisis, Volume Three, October 22-28, 1962 (W.W.Norton & Company, 2001)
  • Foreign Relations, Organization of Foreign Policy; Information Policy; United Nations; Scientific Matters. Kennedy Library, Arthur M. Schlesinger Papers, UN Speeches, 8/2/61-8/11/61, Box WH22. U.S. Strategy in the 16th General Assembly
  • Schlesinger Jr., Arthur – A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House - (Houghton Mifflin, 1965)
  • Urquhart, Brian – Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey (W.W. Norton & Company, 1993)
• On Iran
  • Ganji, Moocher - Defying the Iranian Revolution (Praeger, 2002)
• On the Middle East
  • AlRoy, Gil Carl - The Prospects of War in the Middle East (Commentary/Mach 1969)
  • Draper, Theordore - Israel and World Politics (Commentary/August 1967)
  • Draper, Theodore - The United States & Israel (Commentary/April 1975)
  • Nef, Donald – Warriors for Jerusalem: The Six Days that Changed the Middle East in 1967 (Amana Books, Brattleboro, Vermont, 1988)
  • Sheehan, Edward R.F. – The Arabs, Israelis, and Kissinger: A Secret History of American Diplomacy in the Middle East (Reader’s Digest Press, 1976)
• The Dartmouth Conferences
  • Voorhees, James – Dialogue Sustained: The Multilevel Peace Process and the Dartmouth Conference (United States Institute of Peace Press, Washington, D.C.; Charles F. Kettering Foundation, 2002)
• On Morocco
  • Nes, David, Association for Diplomatic Studies, Foreign Affairs Oral History Program, Georgetown University
• On Greece
  • Markezinis, Spyros - Truman Presidential Museum and Library (Interviewer: Theodore A. Wilson- July 22, 1070 [2]
  • Goldbloom, Maurice - What Happened in Greece (Commentary/December 1967)
• On the USSR
  • Laqueur, Walter - America and the World: The Next Four Years (Commentary/March 1977)
  • Laqueur, Walter - Rewriting History (Commentary/March 1973)
• On Human Rights
  • Laqueur, Walter - The Issue of Human Rights (Commentary/May 1977)

[edit] Archives

• United Nations Archives, Private Papers of the Secretary-General: U Thant: Post Retirement 1971-1974, Correspondence with Individuals and Organizations- Misc. - 03/10/1972-28/12/1972 (Series 0893, Box 11, File 5, Acc. DAG 1/5.2.9.2
• United Nations Archives, Peace-Keeping Operations Files of the Secretary-General: U Thant: Vietnam, Correspondence with Permanent Representatives of the United States of America to the UN and USA - 09/04/1965-08/10/1970 (Series S-0871, Box 1, File 9, DAG 1/5.2.2.3.1
• United Nations Archives, Peace-Keeping Operations. Files of the Secretary-General: U Thant: Other Countries, Laos - Visit from Harriman and Yost- 19/05/1962-19/05/1962
• United Nations Archives, Correspondence Files of the Secretary-General: U Thant: With Heads of State, Governments, Permanent Representatives and Observers, USA - Yost, Charles W.- 21/12/1968-13/04/1971 (Series 0882, Box 5, File 1, Acc. DAG 1/5.2.3
• United Nations Archives, Peace-Keeping Operations. Files of the Secretary-General: U Thant: Middle East, Four-Power Meetings [US, USSR, Great Britain, France] 21/06/1967-25/05/1971 (Series S-0861, Box 1, File 7, Acc. DAG 1/5.2.2.1
• John Foster Dulles Personal Papers [3]
• Harding Bancroft Oral History [4]
• Joseph E. Johnson Oral History [www.unitedelite.net/johnson.pdf]

[edit] Foreign Relations of the U.S. with References to CWY

• Foreign Relations of the US, Diplomatic Papers, 1945, Vol. I, General: The United Nations

• Foreign Relations of the US, Diplomatic Papers, 1945, Vol. VI, The British Commonwealth, The Far East

• Foreign Relations of the US, 1946, Vol. I, General: The United Nations

• Foreign Relations of the US, 1946, Vol. VIII, The Far East

• Foreign Relations of the US, 1947, Vol. II, Council of Foreign Ministers; Germany and Austria

• Foreign Relations of the US, 1949, Vol. II, United Nations Organization

• Foreign Relations of the US, 1949, Vol. III, Council of Foreign Ministers; Germany and Austria

• Foreign Relations of the US, 1950, Vol. I, Foreign Economic Policy

• Foreign Relations of the US, 1950, Vol. V, The Near East, South Asia, and Africa

• Foreign Relations of the US, 1952-1954, Vol. VII, Germany and Austria (in two parts) Part 2

• Foreign Relations of the US, 1961-1963, Vol. XI, Cuban Missile Crisis & Aftermath. #86, #93: [5], #112: [6], #138-139: [7], #153, #156, #163: [8], #183 [9] #210, #212-213, #220, #223: [10] #233-234, #239, #245: [11] #253, #256, #259: [12]

• Foreign Relations of the US, 1961-1963, Vol. XVI, Cyprus; Greece; Turkey, #33, #63, #76, #78, #207, #358, #359, #369

• Foreign Relations of the US, 1961-1963, Vol. XVII, Near East, 1961-1962, #242, #298

• Foreign Relations of the US, 1961-1963, Vol. XVIII, Near East, 1962-1963, #320

• Foreign Relations of the US, 1961-1963, Vol. XXIII, Southeast Asia

• Foreign Relations of the US 1961-63, Volume XXV, Organization of Foreign Policy; Information Policy; United Nations; Scientific Matters, #35, #162, #165, #168, #177, #187, #207, #284, #287, #299

• Foreign Relations of the US, 1964-1968, Vol. II, Vietnam, January-June 1965: Feb. 11-March 8, #161-162, #164: [13]

• Foreign Relations of the US, 1964-1968, Vol. II: Vietnam, July 29-November, 1965, #99, #106 ;[state/history/vol iii/098.html] #114: [14], #203, #207: [15], #278: [16]

• Foreign Relations of the US, 1964-1968, Vol. XIX, Arab-Israeli Crisis and War, 1967, #100 [17]

• Foreign Relations of the US, 1969-1976, Vol. IV, Foreign Assistance, International Development, Trade Policies, 1969-1972, #26

• Foreign Relations of the US, 1969-1976, Vol. V, United Nations 1969-1972, #12, #13, #14, #16, #18, #23, #26, #30, #33

Diplomatic posts
Preceded by James Russell Wiggins	U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations 1969 – 1971	Succeeded by George H. W. Bush
Preceded by James S. Moose, Jr.	U.S. Ambassador to Syria 1957–1958	Succeeded by Ridgway B. Knight

v • d • e United States Ambassadors to the United Nations Edward Stettinius, Jr. · Warren Austin · Henry C. Lodge, Jr. · James J. Wadsworth · Adlai Stevenson · Arthur Goldberg · George Ball · James R. Wiggins · Charles W. Yost · George H. W. Bush · John A. Scali · Daniel P. Moynihan · William Scranton · Andrew Young · Donald McHenry · Jeane Kirkpatrick · Vernon A. Walters · Thomas R. Pickering · Edward J. Perkins · Madeleine Albright · Bill Richardson · Richard Holbrooke · John Negroponte · John Danforth · John R. Bolton · Zalmay Khalilzad  →

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