Edward W. Mulcahy

Edward William Mulcahy was an American diplomat and captain in the United States Marine Corps. He was the United States Ambassador to Chad from 1972 to 1974 and to Tunisia from 1976 to 1979. ^[1]

Biography

Early life and military career, 1921–1946

Mulcahy was born in Malden, Massachusetts on June 15, 1921. His parents were John and Mary Mulcahy. He was the eldest of seven children. He graduated from Malden Catholic High School in 1939. Mulcahhy graduated from Tufts University with a degree in history in 1943.

He later joined the United States Marine Corps in January of 1943, where in 1944 he led a company of the 21st Marines of the 3rd Marine Division during the Second Battle of Guam, as a Second Lieutenant. He was promoted to First Lieutenant in February 1945 and fought at the Battle of Iwo Jima. By the end of the war, Mulcahy had received the Silver Star award^[2] and two Purple Hearts. He was promoted to Captain in 1946 and was in charge of the Marine detachment at the U.S. Navy brig on Governor's Island in New York City, New York. He left the marine corps in 1946.

Career in State Department, 1947-1980

In 1946, Mulcahy attended the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Medford, Massachusetts, and received a Masters Degree from there in 1947. He joined the U.S Foreign Service upon graduation. In Mulcahy's early years of service, he was a Consular Officer in Munich, Germany (1947 to 1949), U.S. Consul in Mombasa, Kenya (1949), and as Political Officer to the U.S. Consulate in Asmara, Eritrea (1950-1953)^[3]. In 1953 in Globe, Arizona, Mulcahy married Kathleen Lyon, whom he had met in 1951 at the U.S. Embassy in Eritrea.

In 1953, Mulcahy worked on a variety of assignments in the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C. until he became a Political Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Athens, Greece. In 1959, he was the Deputy Consul General in Salisbury, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). In 1963 he worked at the Bureau of the Near East and Africa Affairs with responsibility for Southern Africa at the State Department. He was appointed Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Tunis, Tunisia, in 1967, and later at the U.S. Embassy in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1970.

On October 12, 1972, Mulcahy was nominated by President Nixon to be the United States Ambassador to Chad. He was confirmed on December 6, 1972, and left that post on June 23, 1974. Later in 1974, Mulcahy became the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs at the State Department. On March 4, 1976, Mulcahy was nominated to be the United States Ambassador to Tunisia, this time by President Ford. He was confirmed on May 31, 1976, and served until January 5, 1979. He retired from the Foreign Service in 1980, after spending a year as a Diplomat-in-Residence at the University of Atlanta, lecturing about the U.S. foreign policy in Africa, and 33 years of service.

Retirement and later life, 1980-2006

Mulcahy lived in Winchester, Virginia, with his wife, for the remainder of his life. In 1997 Mulcahy was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. His wife died in 2005. On March 12, 2006, Mulcahy died of natural causes at the age of 84. He was buried on April 4, 2006, at Arlington National Cemetary.

He was survived by three brothers, two sisters, five children, and nine grandchildren. He was an excelent linguist, and spoke German, French, Italian, Latin, Swahili and Greek as foreign languages. ^[4]

References

External links

• United States Department of State: Chiefs of Mission for Chad
• United States Department of State: Chad
• United States Embassy in N'Djamena

 This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Department of State (Background Notes).