Charles Woodruff Yost

Charles Woodruff Yost (November 6, 1907 – May 21, 1981) was a career U.S. diplomat who was assigned as his country's representative to the United Nations from 1969 to 1971.

Yost was born in Watertown, New York, on November 6, 1907. He attended the Hotchkiss School, where he was a member of the remarkable class of 1924 that included Roswell Gilpatric, Paul Nitze, and Chapman Rose. before graduating from Princeton University in 1928. He did postgraduate studies at the École des Hautes Études International (École pratique des hautes études) 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 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 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.

In 1945 Yost was reinstated in the Foreign Service, and later that year he served as political adviser to U.S. Lieutenant General Raymond Albert Wheeler on the staff of Lord Louis Mountbatten in Kandy, Ceylon. He then became chargé d'affaires in Thailand during the short reign of Ananda Mahidol. 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 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 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 on May 21, 1981 at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C..

His papers are at Princeton University Library, Mudd Library, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections [1].

Yost’s ancestors, who were driven out of the German Palatinate by Louis XIV’s armies at the end of the 17th century, settled in the Valley of the Mohawk River 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 Oxbow, New York. His ancestor, Brigadier General Nicholas Herkimer, 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 John Foster Dulles.

In 1934, Yost married Irena Rawicz-Oldakowska in Poland. Her father was Kazimierz Ołdakowski, the prewar director of Fabryka Broni. They had two sons, Nicholas and Casimir, and a daughter Felicity.

• 1931: Vice Consul Alexandria, Egypt
• 1932: Vice Consul Warsaw, Poland
• 1933: Resigned from the Foreign Service and became a journalist
• 1935:
  • 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
• 1941:
  • 1) Assistant Chief, U.S. Department of State, Division of Exports and Defense Aid
  • 2) Assistant to the U.S. High Commissioner to the Commonwealth of the Philippines
• 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:
  • 1) Assistant Chief, U.S. Department of State, Division of European Affairs, Office of Foreign Territories, Security Committee
  • 2) Member of the Inter-Divisional Country and Area Committees of the Advisory Committee on Problems of Foreign Relations
  • 3) Assistant Chief, U.S. Department of State, Division of Special Research
• 1943:
  • 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
• 1944:
  • 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 Dumbarton Oaks Conference
• 1945:
  • 1) Special Assistant to the Chairman, Secretary of State Stettinius, 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 Adviser to General Wheeler, Deputy Supreme Allied Commander to the Southeast Asia Command (SEAC), India & Ceylon
  • 4) Assigned as U.S. Political Adviser to General Thomas Terry, Commander of the American India-Burma Theater
• 1946:
  • 1) Chargé d’affairs, Bangkok, Thailand
  • 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, 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 the General Assembly of the United Nations as Special Assistant to Ambassador at Large
  • 3) Director of the Office of Eastern European Affairs, Department of State
• 1950:
  • 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, 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:Foreign Affairs Specialist, U.S. Department of State, Policy Planning Staff
• 1958-61: Ambassador, Rabat, Morocco
• 1961-65: U.S. Deputy Representative to the United Nations with Adlai Stevenson
• 1965-66: U.S. Deputy Representative to the United Nations with Arthur Goldberg
• 1966:
  • 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 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) American Society of International Law Proceedings, Board of Review and Development: Conflict Control by Non-Violent Means (April)
  • 3) 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]
• 1971-73:
  • 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
• 1975-81:
  • 1) Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution
  • 2) Professor at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University
  • 3) Chairman, National Committee on US-China Relations
• 1976-81: Coordinator, Aspen Institute East-West, Iran and China Activities
• 1977: Woodcock delegation to Vietnam
• 1978: 1969 Security Council speech on Jerusalem codified in Camp David Accord Annex
• 1979:
  • 1) Co-chairman Americans for SALT Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
  • 2) Honorary Co-Chairman United Nations Association of the United States

• Old Faces and New - TIME
• [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
• 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
• Fund for Peace

• 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 Yost to be Ambassador to Morocco
• 7 February 1961: Executive Session, Tuesday- Nomination of Yost to be Deputy U.S. Representative, Security Council, United Nations
• January 21, 1969: United States Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Nomination of Yost to be U.S. Representative to the UN
• 1970: Policy Toward Africa for the Seventies
• 26 May 1971: Senate Foreign Relations Committee Fulbright Hearings-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)
• 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 Institution, 1975
• American Foreign Policy in a New Era (Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, 1976)
• "National Security Revisited," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist, Oct., 1980 [1]
• 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
• Syndicated columnist for the Washington Post
• Syndicated columnist for the Christian Science Monitor

• 1969: The myths that block peace | From Occupied Palestine
• The Christian Science Monitor | Daily Online Newspaper

• On Jerusalem

• The United States' position on Jerulsalem as stated by its ambassador Archived January 15, 2005, at the Wayback Machine.

• 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)

• [1] the New York Times
• [2] Philip L. Geyelin

• [1] "Our Man in Morocco" Foreign Service Journal
• [2] "The Emergence of a Diplomat" American Diplomacy

• 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
• Joseph E. Johnson Oral History [1]

• 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 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
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• Foreign Relations of the US, 1961–1963, Vol. XVI, Cyprus; Greece; Turkey, #33, #63, #76, #78, #207, #358, #359, #369
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• Foreign Relations of the US, 1961–1963, Vol. XVIII, Near East, 1962–1963, #320
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