Elbridge Durbrow

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Elbridge Durbrow
Dwight Eisenhower
John F. Kennedy
Preceded byG. Frederick Reinhardt
Succeeded byFrederick Nolting
Personal details
Born(1903-09-21)September 21, 1903
San Francisco, California, U.S.
DiedMay 16, 1997(1997-05-16) (aged 93)
Walnut Creek, California, U.S.

Elbridge Durbrow (September 21, 1903 – May 16, 1997) was a Foreign Service officer and diplomat who served as the Counselor of Embassy and Deputy

Chief of Mission in Moscow in the late 1940s and then as the US ambassador to South Vietnam from March 14, 1957, to April 16, 1961. He supported the Diem regime until late 1960, when he reported that the situation was deteriorating and that unless steps were taken to reform the government, Diem would be likely overthrown in a coup, or lose the country to the Viet Cong
. Diem and his American supporters worked to get Durbrow transferred, and he was recalled by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, and sent to a diplomatic role with NATO in Europe.

Early life

Durbrow was born in

École Libre des Sciences Politiques in Paris and finally the University of Chicago, where he studied international economics and finance.[1]

Career

Durbrow began his career in the

US State Department's Eastern European affairs division.[2]

In 1944, Durbrow was appointed as the chief of the Eastern European division of the State Department in

CIA Director, Walter Bedell Smith. Durbrow warned Smith and others of Soviet expansionism and efforts to break up the Western world.[1]

From 1948 to 1950, he served as an adviser to the National War College in Washington, DC, and spent the next two years as director of the Foreign Service's personnel division.[2] In 1952, he was sent to Italy, where he served as deputy chief of mission to the US ambassador to Italy, Clare Boothe Luce. Two years later, he was promoted to the diplomatic rank of career minister.[2]

On March 14, 1957, President

United States Ambassador to South Vietnam.[3]
At the time, the US had a minor military and political presence in Vietnam to prevent communism from taking over the region.

Durbrow had a difficult time in his ambassadorial role.[1] He often had to work with the authoritarian regime of Ngo Dinh Diem and the corruption and ineffective policymaking that accompanied it. South Vietnamese officers, disgruntled with Diem's government, tried to persuade Durbrow into joining anti-Diem groups.

Durbrow began to feel uneasy about Diem's authority, had to refuse because the US government was still supported Diem.[1]

In 1960, Diem and his younger brother and chief political adviser,

Ngo Dinh Nhu, accused Durbrow of supporting a failed coup attempt by paratroopers of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam.[4] Durbrow later recalled receiving a phone call from one of Diem's aides, who asked him to tell Diem to surrender or face a howitzer attack on the presidential palace. Durbrow refused, and no attack occurred. He later learned that the aide had been forced to make the call.[5]

In April 1961, President

Air University.[1]

Retirement

Durbrow retired from his 38-year diplomatic career in 1968. He spent the next two decades writing and lecturing on

foreign affairs. Throughout the 1970s, he served as the chairman of the American Foreign Policy Institute and as the director of the Center for International Strategic Studies and the Freedom Studies Center in South Boston, Virginia.[1]

Durbrow died at his home in Walnut Creek, California on May 16, 1997, from complications of a stroke. He was survived by his second wife, Benice Balcom Durbrow, and two sons from his first marriage, Chandler and Bruce.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Saxon, Wolfgang (1997-05-23). "Elbridge Durbrow, U.S. Diplomat, Dies at 93". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-04-21.
  2. ^ a b c d e Pearson, Richard (1997-05-20). "Elbridge Durbrow, 93, Dies; Ambassador to S. Vietnam". The Washington Post. p. B06.
  3. ^ "Chiefs of Mission by Country, 1778-2005: Vietnam, South". United States State Department. Retrieved 2008-04-21.
  4. ISBN 0-525-24210-4
    .
  5. ^ “Interview with Eldridge Durbrow, 1979 (Part 1 of 3).” Archived 2010-12-22 at the Wayback Machine 02/01/1979. WGBH Media Library & Archives. Retrieved November 23, 2010.

Further reading

  • Adamson, Michael R. "Ambassadorial Roles and Foreign Policy: Elbridge Durbrow, Frederick Nolting, and the US Commitment to Diem's Vietnam, 1957–61." Presidential Studies Quarterly 32.2 (2002): 229–255.
  • Frankum Jr, Ronald Bruce. Vietnam's Year of the Rat: Elbridge Durbrow, Ngo Đinh Diệm and the Turn in US Relations, 1959-1961 (McFarland, 2014).
Diplomatic posts
Preceded by
United States Ambassador to South Vietnam

1957–1961 		Succeeded by
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