Walter Patrick McConaughy, Jr. (September 11, 1908 – November 10, 2000) was a career American diplomat who served as U.S. Ambassador to a number of countries.

Education

McConaughy attended

Birmingham–Southern College Birmingham–Southern College (BSC) is a private college in Birmingham, Alabama. Founded in 1856, the college is affiliated with the United Methodist Church and is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). More than 1 ...

and Duke University, graduating in 1930.

Career

McConaughy joined the

US State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nati ...

after graduation. He first served in

Tampico Tampico is a city and port in the southeastern part of the state of Tamaulipas, Mexico. It is located on the north bank of the Pánuco River, about inland from the Gulf of Mexico, and directly north of the state of Veracruz. Tampico is the fifth ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

and then in 1933 was posted to Kobe, Japan, where he served for seven years with brief spells in Taiwan and Nagasaki. He was transferred to

Beiping "Beijing" is from pinyin ''Běijīng,'' which is romanized from , the Chinese name for this city. The pinyin system of transliteration was approved by the Chinese government in 1958, but little used until 1979. It was gradually adopted by various ...

in 1941. When the Pacific War commenced he was interned and then repatriated. He then served in La Paz, Bolivia as a commercial attache, and then

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a ...

. In 1948, was posted to as

Consul Consul (abbrev. ''cos.''; Latin plural ''consules'') was the title of one of the two chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, and subsequently also an important title under the Roman Empire. The title was used in other European city-states throu ...

at the United States Consulate General in Shanghai and was promoted to

Consul General A consul is an official representative of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul's own country, as well as to facilitate trade and friendship between the people ...

in 1949. Following the Communist victory in China, he closed the Shanghai Consulate and moved to Hong Kong. McConaughy's reports from that period show a burning clarity in their analysis of

Chinese Communist The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil ...

propaganda and the currents of information available in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

. After returning to Washington to serve alongside Edwin M. Martin and O.E. Clubb in the

Office of Chinese Affairs In the United States Government, the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs (EAP, originally the Office of Chinese Affairs) is part of the United States Department of State and is charged with advising the Secretary of State and Under Secreta ...

, he served as the ambassador to

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

from May 1957 to November 1959. He then accepted an offer to become the ambassador to

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...

, a post he held from 1959 to 1961, later becoming the ambassador to

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...

from 1962 to 1966 and the ambassador to the Republic of China from 1966 to 1974. His obituary appeared in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

''.

References

1908 births 2000 deaths Ambassadors of the United States to Taiwan Ambassadors of the United States to Pakistan Ambassadors of the United States to Myanmar Ambassadors of the United States to South Korea Duke University alumni Consuls general of the United States in Shanghai Consuls general of the United States in Hong Kong and Macau United States Foreign Service personnel {{US-diplomat-stub