Graham Martin

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Graham Martin (1975)

Graham Anderson Martin (born September 22, 1912 in Mars Hill , Madison County , North Carolina , † March 14, 1990 in Winston-Salem , North Carolina) was an American diplomat and the last US ambassador to Saigon .

Life

Graham Martin graduated from Wake Forest University in 1932 and then entered the civil service. From 1933 he worked for the National Recovery Administration on the staff of W. Averell Harriman ; from 1936 he worked for social security . During World War II he served as a colonel in the Army Air Corps .

From 1947 he was employed by the US State Department, which employed him until 1955 as attaché , counselor and finally deputy head of the US embassy in Paris . From 1957 to 1959, he served as special assistant to C. Douglas Dillon , the United States Under Secretary of State . From 1960 to 1962 he was the US representative at the United Nations in Geneva, then Deputy Coordinator of the US government for the Alliance for Progress in the development aid agency USAID .

From 1963 to 1967 he was the United States Ambassador to Thailand and at the same time the US representative on the SEATO Council . In Bangkok he built a close relationship between the USA and the Thai military government. Together with the international intelligence service CIA , he supported the establishment of the Thai Command for Combating Communists, from which the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC) later emerged. On November 23, 1965, Martin's foster son, First Lieutenant Glenn Dill Mann, was killed in a helicopter operation in Vietnam. In 1969, Martin became US ambassador to Rome ; he held this post until 1973.

Then he succeeded Ellsworth Bunkers as US ambassador to South Vietnam . He held this post until the fall of Saigon . Martin left Saigon on April 30, 1975 while the city was being surrounded by units of the North Vietnamese People's Army , and was transferred to the USS from the U.S. Embassy in Saigon in a CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter during Operation Frequent Wind Blue Ridge flown out.

In the period that followed, Martin served as a special assistant to Foreign Minister Henry Kissinger and ambassador-at-large for the Pacific region until he retired. He settled in North Carolina, where he died of heart disease on March 14, 1990 at Forsythe Hospital in Winston-Salem. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Graham Martin , biography on VietnamWar.net.
  2. ^ Hearing Before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, Ninety-first Congress, First Session. P. 20.
  3. ↑ Tyrell Haberkorn: In Plain Sight. Impunity and Human Rights in Thailand. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison (WI) / London 2018, p. 137.
  4. ↑ arlingtoncemetery.net: Glenn Dillmann ; Status: October 21, 2010
  5. ↑ New York Times, March 15, 1990  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. As of May 27, 2007@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / select.nytimes.com  
  6. ^ Graham Martin in the Find a Grave database . Retrieved April 21, 2020 (English).
predecessor Office successor
Kenneth Todd Young U.S. Ambassador to Bangkok
November 7, 1963 to September 9, 1967 		Leonard S. Unger
Gardner Ackley U.S. Ambassador to Rome
October 30, 1969 to February 10, 1973 		John Volpe
Ellsworth Bunker U.S. Ambassador to Saigon
July 20, 1973 to April 29, 1975 		Office abolished
personal data
SURNAME Martin, Graham
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Martin, Graham Anderson (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US diplomat and last US ambassador to Saigon
DATE OF BIRTH September 22, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Mars Hill , North Carolina
DATE OF DEATH March 14, 1990
Place of death Winston-Salem , North Carolina