Malcolm Toon | |
|---|---|
 | |
| United States Ambassador toCzechoslovakia | |
| In office July 31, 1969 – October 11, 1971 | |
| President | Richard Nixon |
| Preceded by | Jacob D. Beam |
| Succeeded by | Albert W. Sherer, Jr. |
| United States Ambassador toYugoslavia | |
| In office October 23, 1971 – March 11, 1975 | |
| President | Richard Nixon Gerald Ford |
| Preceded by | William K. Leonhart |
| Succeeded by | Laurence H. Silberman |
| United States Ambassador toIsrael | |
| In office July 10, 1975 – December 27, 1976 | |
| President | Gerald Ford |
| Preceded by | Kenneth B. Keating |
| Succeeded by | Samuel W. Lewis |
| United States Ambassador tothe Soviet Union | |
| In office January 18, 1977 – October 16, 1979 | |
| President | Gerald Ford Jimmy Carter |
| Preceded by | Walter John Stoessel Jr. |
| Succeeded by | Thomas J. Watson Jr. |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1916-07-04)July 4, 1916 Troy, New York, U.S. |
| Died | February 12, 2009(2009-02-12) (aged 92) |
| Spouse | Elizabeth Jane Taylor (died 1996) |
| Children | 3 |
| Education | |
Malcolm Toon (July 4, 1916 – February 12, 2009)[1] was an Americandiplomat who served as aForeign Service Officer in Moscow in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, during theCold War, ultimately becoming the ambassador to theSoviet Union.
Toon was born July 4, 1916, inTroy, New York, where his father was a stonecutter, shortly after his parents had emigrated fromScotland.[2][3] The family returned to Scotland when he was 6, before then resettling inNorthborough, Massachusetts. Toon received anA. B. Degree from Tufts University in 1937, and anM.A. degree from theFletcher School of Law and Diplomacy ofTufts University in 1938.[2] He served in theUnited States Navy from 1942 to 1946.[4] In thePacific Ocean theater of World War II, he was aPT boat skipper, and received theBronze Star Medal for valor.[5]
A resident ofSouthern Pines, North Carolina, Toon was married to Elizabeth Jane Taylor until her death in 1996. They are interred atArlington National Cemetery.[2] Toon died at a hospital inPinehurst, North Carolina, on February 12, 2009, aged 92. His death was reported in local media and mentioned by theForeign Service Journal at the time, but was not reported in national news, despite his prominence as a diplomat.[2]The New York Times said it never received any word of his death in 2009, and the paper's obituary for Toon, which was prepared around 2006, was not published until 2017.[2]
After the war, Toon joined theUnited States Foreign Service, receiving postings inPoland,Haiti, andHungary, before being trained in the Russian language at theEmbassy of the United States, Moscow in the 1950s.[2]
In 1965, Toon had become the U.S. embassy's third-ranking official when the Russians made accusations that was running a spy ring, which were officially denied, and he was not expelled.[2] He then became the head of the State Department's Soviet Affairs office.[2]
Toon was the ambassador toCzechoslovakia from 1969 to 1971,Yugoslavia from 1971 to 1975, Israel from 1975 to 1976,[6] and theSoviet Union from 1977 to 1979.
He participated inSALT II talks from 1977 to 1979 and the American-Soviet Summit inVienna in 1979. At the summit, Toon learned that PresidentJimmy Carter had chosenThomas Watson Jr., a business executive, as his replacement, leading Toon to publicly criticize making ambassadors out of those without any State Department experience.[2] Secretary of StateCyrus Vance then negotiated SALT II with Soviet AmbassadorAnatoly Dobrynin without Toon, causing an upset Toon to publicly question the agreement's verification procedure.[2] President Carter signed the treaty but when Soviet-American relations deteriorated he withdrew it from consideration by the U.S. Senate.[2][7]
In the 1990s, Toon co-chaired theU.S.–Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIAs with Russian generalDmitri Volkogonov. An article about Toon's briefing of the U.S. press corps in Moscow 1977–1979 was published in theForeign Service Journal in June 2011.[8]
| Diplomatic posts | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | United States ambassador to Czechoslovakia 1969–1971 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | United States ambassador to Yugoslavia 1971–1975 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | United States ambassador to Israel 1975–1976 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | United States ambassador to the Soviet Union 1977–1979 | Succeeded by |
| Czechoslovakia (1919–1992) |  | |
|---|---|---|
| Czech Republic (1993–present) | ||
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 Russian Empire(1780–1917) | |
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 Soviet Union(1933–1991) | |
| Russian Federation (1991–present) | |
| International | |
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| National | |
| Other | |
