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Charles Woodruff Yost (November 6, 1907 – May 21, 1981) was a career U.S. diplomat who was assigned as his country's
from 1969 to 1971.
Yost was born in , on November 6, 1907. He attended the , with , , and Chapman Rose before graduating from
in 1928. He did postgraduate studies at the ?cole des Hautes ?tudes 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
in 1930 on the advice of former Secretary of State , 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 . He then served at the United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco in April 1945 as aide to Secretary of State . In July of that year he was secretary-general of the Potsdam Conference.
In 1945 Yost was reinstated in the Foreign Service, and later that year he served as political adviser to U.S. Lieutenant General
on the staff of
in , Ceylon. He then became chargé d'affaires in Thailand during the short reign of . 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 , 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 the rank of Career Ambassador, the highest professional Foreign Service level, 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
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 , 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 . He took part in the unofficial
of United States and Soviet scholars. In 1973, he was named head of the National Committee on United States-China R he visited the People's Republic of China in 1973 and 1977.
Yost died of cancer on May 21, 1981 at Georgetown University Hospital in .
His papers are at Princeton University Library, Mudd Library, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections .
Yost’s ancestors, who were driven out of the German Palatinate by
armies at the end of the 17th century, settled in the Valley of the
in New York State. Others were of Scotch-Irish origin and came to this country with the immigration that took place about the middle of the 18th century.
Yost’s ancestor, Edward Howell, founded Watermill on Long Island, New York and his ancestor Abraham Cooper founded . His ancestor, Brigadier General , was a Revolutionary War hero.
Yost’s father Nicholas, an attorney, judge and bank president was married to his mother Gertrude by Pastor Dulles the father of Secretary of State .
In 1934, Yost married Irena Rawicz-Oldakowska in Poland. They had two sons, Nicholas and Casimir, and a daughter Felicity.
1931: Vice Consul ,
1932: Vice Consul ,
1933: Resigned from the Foreign Service and became a journalist
1) Progress Report Specialist at the Resettlement Administration
2) Divisional Assistant, U.S. Department of State, Division of Western European Affairs
3) Assistant Chief, U.S. Department of State, Office of Arms and Munitions Control
1936: Division of Arms and Munitions Control
1939: Assistant Chief, U.S. Department of State, Division of Controls
1) Assistant Chief, U.S. Department of State, Division of Exports and Defense Aid
2) Assistant to the U.S. High Commissioner to the Philippine Commonwealth
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
1) Assistant Chief, U.S. Department of State, Division of European Affairs, Office of Foreign Territories
2) Member of the Inter-Divisional Country and Area Committees of the
3) Assistant Chief, U.S. Department of State,
1) Division of European Affairs
2) Office of Foreign Economic Coordination, U.S. Department of State
1943-44: Assistant Chief, U.S. Department of State, Division of Foreign Activity Correlation
1) Executive Secretary, Department of State Policy Committee
2) Division of International Security and Organization
3) Executive Secretary, U.S. Department of State, Joint Secretariat of Executive Staff Commission
4) Assistant to the Chairman for the
1) Special Assistant to the Chairman, Secretary of State Stettinius, U.S. Delegation to the
Conference on International Organizations, San Francisco
2) Secretary-General, U.S. Delegation, Berlin Conference,
3) Assigned as U.S. Political Adviser to General Wheeler, Deputy Supreme Allied Commander to the Southeast Asia Command (SEAC),
4) Assigned as U.S. Political Adviser to General Thomas Terry, Commander of the American India-Burma Theater
1) Chargé d’affairs, ,
2) U.S. Delegation to UNESCO, United Nations, Lake Success, New York
3) Political Adviser to U.S. Delegation, General Assembly of the United Nations
1947: First Secretary & Counselor, ,
1947-49: First Secretary & Counselor of Legation, ,
1) Member of U.S. D 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, Department of State
1) Director of the Office of Eastern European Affairs, Department of State
2) Special Assistant to Ambassador at Large, Deputy Policy Adviser to the U.S. Delegation to the United Nations, New York
3) European Affairs Rep., U.S. Department of State, on Policy Comm. on Immigration and Naturalization
4) U.S. Department of State,
1950-53: Counselor with Personal rank of Minister, ,
1953: Deputy High Commissioner & Deputy Chief of Mission, Vienna, Austria
1954: Minister, ,
: Ambassador, Laos
1956: Minister, ,
1957-58: Ambassador, ,
1958:Foreign Affairs Specialist, U.S. Department of State, Policy Planning Staff
1958-61: Ambassador, ,
1961-65: U.S. Deputy Representative to the United Nations with
1965-66: U.S. Deputy Representative to the United Nations with
1) Resigned from the Foreign Service
2) Chairman, United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE), New Delhi
3) Bureau of Near East & South Asian Affairs, State Department
1966-69: Senior Fellow at the
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)
1968: Head of the State Department Cyprus Study Group
1969-71:U.S. Representative to the United Nations, New York. President of the Security Council
1970-80: Member of the Dartmouth Conference Delegation
1971: Resigned from the Foreign Service
1) Counselor to UN Association
2) Professor at Columbia University's School of International Affairs
1972: U.S. Presidential envoy to Egypt
1973-75: President, National Committee on US-China Relations
1974: Professor at Rockefeller Foundation's Villa Serbelloni Study and Conference Center in Bellagio
1975: Presidential envoy to Egypt
1) Senior Fellow,
2) Professor at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University
3) Chairman, National Committee on US-China Relations
1976-81: Coordinator,
East-West, Iran and China Activities
1977: Woodcock delegation to
Security Council speech on Jerusalem codified in Camp David Accord Annex
1979: Co-chairman Americans for SALT
Syndicated columnist for the Washington Post
Syndicated columnist for the Christian Science Monitor
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
Chairman of the Board, International House, New York City
American Philosophical Society
Visiting Committee of the Center for International Affairs (CFIA)
Chairman of the National Advertising Review Board
Editorial Board, Foreign Service Journal
Editorial Committee, VISTA Magazine
Institute for World Order
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The Fund for Investigative Journalism
Member of the Dartmouth Conferences
Hotchkiss Man of the Year
1958: Appointed Career Minister
1961: Lotus Award of Merit
1964: Appointed Career Ambassador
1964: Rockefeller Public Service Award
1967: Order of the Distinguished Diplomatic Service Merit First Class, Republic of Korea
1971: State Department Distinguished Honor Award
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
1958: Executive Sessions of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (Historical Series), Vol. X, Eighty-Fifth Congress, Second Session- Statement and questioning of CWY to be Ambassador to Morocco
7 February 1961: Executive Session, Tuesday- Nomination of CWY to be Deputy U.S. Representative, Security Council, United Nations
January 21, 1969: United States Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Nomination of CWY to be U.S. Representative to the UN
26 May 1971: Senate Foreign Relations Committee -Statement on Southeast Asia
18 May 1972: Committee on Foreign relations-Subcommittee on the Near East
22 February 1973: Statement to Foreign Affairs Committee on the Rhodesian situation
11 May 1973: Senate Foreign Relations Committee-International Court of Justice
5 December 1973: Foreign Affairs Committee-United Nations Peacekeeping
7 October 1975: Foreign Affairs Committee-Sinai
1979: Senate Hearings on International Human Rights Treaties
Adlai Stevenson - September 1966 (John Bartlow Martin)
John Foster Dulles Oral History Project – December 1966
International Negotiations Project - Columbia University – May 1974
Dwight D. Eisenhower Library – September 1978
JFK Library – October 1978
The Age of Triumph and Frustration: Modern Dialogues (Speller, 1964)
The Insecurity of Nations: International Relations in the Twentieth Century (Praeger, 1968)
The Pursuit of World Order (Villanova University Press, 1969)
The Conduct and Misconduct of Foreign Affairs (Random House, 1972)
American Foreign Policy in a New Era (Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, 1976)
History & Memory (Norton, 1980)
Carnegie Foundation "Bermuda" paper on Vietnam
"The United Nations: Crisis of Confidence and Will," Foreign Affairs Magazine, Oct., 1966
“The Arab-Israeli War: How It Began,” Foreign Affairs Magazine, Jan., 1968
“World Order and American Responsibility,” Foreign Affairs Magazine, Oct., 1968
“Israel and the Arabs: The Myths that Block Peace – Atlantic Magazine, 1969
“Last Chance for Peace in the Mideast” Life Magazine, 1971
"A Letter to a Soviet Friend", Life Magazine, September 24, 1971
"The Instruments of American Foreign Policy," Foreign Affairs Magazine, Oct., 1971
“Toward Peace in the Middle East: Report of a Study Group, The Brookings Institute, 1975
"National Security Revisited," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist, Oct., 1980
What future for the UN? an Atlantic dialogue. The reactions of Western Europeans and others to the report of the Atlantic Council's Working Group on the United Nations, (written with Lincoln Bloomfield), The Atlantic Council, 1977
BCSIA, Volume 6, Number 3, Winter 1981/82 "Commentary: The Governance of International Affairs"
“National and Collective Responsibility: The Governance of International Affairs,” Aspen Institute ‘Wye Paper,’ 1981
On Jerusalem
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)
Philip Geyelin
"Our Man in Morocco" Foreign Service Journal
"The Emergence of a Diplomat" American Diplomacy
'Charles Woodruff Yost, 73 Dies, Was Chief U.S. Delegate To UN,' New York Times, May 22, 1981, section 1, pg. 21
“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)
Laos: Beyond the Revolution - Edited by Joseph J.Zasloff &Y Leonard Under (St Martin's Press, New York, 1991)
Rives, L. Michael - The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project
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
“Democracy, Elections and Internal Security: U.S. Policy Toward Laos in the Late 1950s” - Koji Terachi (Rutger’s University)
Wikipedia: King Ananda Mahidol
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.
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,
(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)
– Adlai Stevenson and the World (Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1978)
Oral history of Charles Easton Rothwell
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,
(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 P Information P United N 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)
Joseph Johnson UN interview 1985
Harlan Cleveland Oral History, JFK Library
Ganji, Moocher - Defying the Iranian Revolution (Praeger, 2002)
On the Middle East
"Cold War and Covert Action: The U.S. and Syria, " Middle East Journal, Winter 1990
Yaqub, Salim - Containing Arab Nationalism: The Eisenhower Doctrine and 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)
Riad, Mahmoud - The Struggle for Peace in the Middle East (Quartet Books, 1983)
The Dartmouth Conferences
Voorhees, James – Dialogue Sustained: The Multilevel Peace Process and the Dartmouth Conference (United States Institute of Peace Press, Washington, D.C.; , 2002)
On Morocco
Nes, David, Association for Diplomatic Studies, Foreign Affairs Oral History Program, Georgetown University
The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project
Jane Smiley Hart
Parker T. Hart
Curtis F. Jones
Markezinis, Spyros - Truman Presidential Museum and Library (Interviewer: Theodore A. Wilson- July 22, 1070
Goldbloom, Maurice - What Happened in Greece (Commentary/December 1967)
The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project
Norbert L. Anschutz
Betty Jane Peurifoy
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)
Borg, Dorothy & Heinrichs, Waldo Editors - Uncertain Years: Chinese Relations.
On Potsdam
James W. Riddleberger
The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project
ALfred Leroy Atherton Jr.
Lucius D. Battle
Robert O. Blake
Samuel De Palma
Dwight Dickinson
C. Douglas Dillon
Richard Funkhouser
Samuel W. Lewis
Cecil B. Lyon
Robert B. Oakley
Mary Seymour Olmsted
Claiborne Pell
Frederick H. Sacksteder
“Will the Balance Balance at Home” Stanley Hoffmann (Foreign Policy Magazine, Summer 1972)
United Nations Archives, Private Papers of the Secretary-General: U Thant: Post Retirement , Correspondence with Individuals and Organizations- Misc. - 03/10//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//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
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//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//1971 (Series S-0861, Box 1, File 7, Acc. DAG 1/5.2.2.1
John Foster Dulles Personal Papers
Joseph E. Johnson Oral History
Foreign Relations of the US, Diplomatic Papers, 1941, Vol. IV, General: The Far East
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 M 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 M 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, , Vol. VII, Germany and Austria (in two parts) Part 2
Foreign Relations of the US, , Vol. XI, Cuban Missile Crisis & Aftermath. #86, #93: , #112: , #138-139: , #153, #156, #163: , #183
#210, #212-213, #220, #223:
#233-234, #239, #245:
#253, #256, #259:
Foreign Relations of the US, , Vol. XVI, C G Turkey, #33, #63, #76, #78, #207, #358, #359, #369
Foreign Relations of the US, , Vol. XVII, Near East, , #242, #298
Foreign Relations of the US, , Vol. XVIII, Near East, , #320
Foreign Relations of the US, , Vol. XXIII, Southeast Asia
Foreign Relations of the US 1961-63, Volume XXV, Organization of Foreign P Information P United N Scientific Matters, #35, #162, #165, #168, #177, #187, #207, #284, #287, #299
Foreign Relations of the US, , Vol. II, Vietnam, January–June 1965: Feb. 11-March 8, #161-162, #164:
Foreign Relations of the US, , Vol. II: Vietnam, July 29-November, 1965, #99, #106 ; #114: , #203, #207: , #278:
Foreign Relations of the US, , Vol. XIX, Arab-Israeli Crisis and War, 1967, #100
Foreign Relations of the US, , Vol. IV, Foreign Assistance, International Development, Trade Policies, , #26
Foreign Relations of the US, , Vol. V, United Nations ,
Diplomatic posts
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