Frederick Nolting

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Frederick Ernst Nolting (August 24, 1911December 14, 1989), was a World War II naval officer and United States diplomat.

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[edit] Early life and education

Nolting was born in Richmond, Virginia to Frederick Ernst Nolting Sr and Mary Buford. He graduated from the University of Virginia in 1933 with a B.A. in History. He then received a masters degree from Harvard University in 1941 and his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia.

[edit] Career

Frederick Nolting joined the State Department in 1946 where he acted as special assistant to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles for mutual security affairs. He was appointed as a member of the United States delegation to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1955. In 1957 he was appointed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower as alternate permanent representative to NATO, and in 1961 he was appointed by President John F. Kennedy as United States Ambassador to South Vietnam. Nolting was a firm supporter of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem to the point where by 1963 President Kennedy felt he had become too identified with the flawed Diem regime to be effective, and was replaced by Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr..

Following his government service, Ambassador Nolting went to work for Morgan Guaranty Trust Company, and in 1970 joined the faculty of the University of Virginia.

In 1988 he published his memoir From Trust to Tragedy: The Political Memoirs of Frederick Nolting, Kennedy's Ambassador to Diem's Vietnam.[1]

[edit] Personal life

Nolting married Olivia Lindsay Crumpler in 1940. They had four children – Molly, Jane, Grace and Frances. In 1954, he purchased "Sully", the former estate home of Richard Bland Lee, first Congressman from Northern Virginia, built in 1794.

[edit] Death

Ambassador Nolting died on December 14, 1989 in Charlottesville, Virginia. He was buried at St. Paul's Churchyard, Ivy, Albermarle County, Virginia.[2]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Olson, James Stuart Historical Dictionary of the 1960's (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999)
  2. ^ New York Times, Frederick Nolting Jr., U.S. Envoy To Saigon in 60's, Is Dead at 78 (New York, December 16, 1989)