John Moors Cabot (December 11, 1901 – February 24, 1981) was an American diplomat and

U.S. Ambassador Ambassadors of the United States are persons nominated by the President of the United States, president to serve as the country's diplomat, diplomatic representatives to foreign nations, international organizations, and as Ambassador-at-large, ...

to five nations during the Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy administrations. He also served as Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs. He warned repeatedly of the dangers of Soviet communism toward American interests in Latin America.

Early life

Cabot was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His father was

Godfrey Lowell Cabot Godfrey Lowell Cabot (February 26, 1861 – November 2, 1962) was an American industrialist who founded the Cabot Corporation. Early life Godfrey Lowell Cabot was born in Boston, Massachusetts and attended Boston Latin School. His father was Sa ...

(1861–1962), founder of Cabot Corporation and a philanthropist. His mother was Maria Moors Cabot. Two of his siblings were Thomas Dudley Cabot (b. 1897), businessman and philanthropist, and Eleanor Cabot of the

Eleanor Cabot Bradley Estate The Eleanor Cabot Bradley Estate is a nonprofit country house and garden ground museum in Canton, Massachusetts. It is operated by The Trustees of Reservations. The grounds are open every day, sunrise to sunset, without charge. History In 1902, ...

. Cabot graduated from

Buckingham Browne & Nichols Buckingham Browne & Nichols School, often referred to as BB&N, is an independent co-educational day school in Cambridge, Massachusetts, educating students from pre-kindergarten (called Beginners) through twelfth grade. BB&N is regularly ranked am ...

in 1919. He would go on to graduate magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1923, and from Oxford University with a degree in Modern History.

Career

Cabot joined the US Foreign Service in 1926. Much of his early career was spent in Latin America. His first Foreign Service assignment was as a consul in Callao-Lima, Peru, in 1927. For the next eight years, he served in the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Brazil. From 1935 to 1939, he served first in the Netherlands and then in Sweden. From 1939 to 1941, he was in Guatemala.Washington Post, Obituary, 25 February 1981
/ref> During much of World War II, Cabot worked in the State Department as assistant chief of the division of American Republics and then as chief of the division of Caribbean and Central American affairs. John M Cabot, KC Wu, Y

He was posted to Argentina after the war and, then, in 1947, he was appointed counsellor of the US Embassy in

Belgrade Belgrade ( , ;, ; Names of European cities in different languages: B, names in other languages) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers a ...

, Yugoslavia. He was then appointed US Consul General in Shanghai between 1948 and 1949 and was in post when the Communist troops took over the city in May, 1949. Cabot served a

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

from 1954 to 1957,

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

from 1957 to 1959, Brazil from 1959 to 1961, and Poland from 1962 to 1965, during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administration. He was also commissioned to Pakistan during a recess of the Senate, but did not serve under this appointment. From 1953 to 1954, he also served as Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs. There is a 27 page transcript from an interview of Cabot, discussing the Alliance for Progress, Bay of Pigs invasion,

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

foreign policy A State (polity), state's foreign policy or external policy (as opposed to internal or domestic policy) is its objectives and activities in relation to its interactions with other states, unions, and other political entities, whether bilaterall ...

, and international relations during the Kennedy administration, archived in the

John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum is the presidential library and museum of John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917–1963), the 35th president of the United States (1961–1963). It is located on Columbia Point in the Dorchester neighbo ...

. As ambassador to Brazil, 1959-61 his public relations campaigns on behalf of American business angered nationalist politicians and journalists. President Jânio Quadros of Brazil publicly rebuked Cabot for questioning Brazil's foreign policy and tolerance of the Cuban revolution. President John Kennedy recalled Cabot early in 1961. In December 1954, Cabot, in his role as U.S. ambassador to Sweden, attended the Nobel banquet and read the acceptance speech for the

Nobel Prize in Literature ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , caption = , awarded_for = Outstanding contributions in literature , presenter = Swedish Academy , holder = Annie Ernaux (2022) , location = Stockholm, Sweden , year = 1901 , ...

awarded that year to Ernest Hemingway who was not present due to ill health. Following his retirement from the

U.S. Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...

, he taught at Georgetown University's

Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service Edmund is a masculine given name or surname in the English language. The name is derived from the Old English elements ''ēad'', meaning "prosperity" or "riches", and ''mund'', meaning "protector". Persons named Edmund include: People Kings and ...

and Tufts Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. In 1981, Tuft's John M. and Elizabeth L. Cabot Intercultural Center was named in honor of Cabot and his wife.

Personal life

In 1932, he married Vassar College graduate Elizabeth Lewis (d. 1992). Together, they were the parents of four children: * John G.L. Cabot (b. 1934) * Lewis P. Cabot (d. 2020), owner of the Portland, Maine-based Southworth Machine Company * Marjorie Cabot, who married

Antonio Enríquez Savignac José Antonio Enríquez Savignac (born August 17, 1931 in Mexico City–d. February, 2007) was a Mexican politician who served as Secretary of Tourism in the cabinet of President Miguel de la Madrid and as Secretary-General of the United Nati ...

(1931–2007) in 1957. * Elizabeth T. Cabot, who married Bogislav von Wentzel. Cabot died at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C. on February 24, 1981.

Published works

* ''The Racial Conflict in Transylvania: A Discussion of the Conflicting Claims of Rumania and Hungary to Transylvania, the Banat, and the Eastern Section of the Hungarian Plain'', 1926 * ''Toward Our Common American Destiny: Speeches and Interviews on Latin American Problems'', 1954 * ''First line of defense: forty years' experiences of a career diplomat'' (Georgetown University, School of Foreign Service, 1979).

References

External links

John Moors Cabot
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