Malcolm Toon
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Gerald Ford
Malcolm Toon | |
|---|---|
 | |
| United States Ambassador to Czechoslovakia | |
| 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 to Yugoslavia | |
| 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 to Israel | |
| In office July 10, 1975 – December 27, 1976 | |
| President | Gerald Ford |
| Preceded by | Kenneth B. Keating |
| Succeeded by | Samuel W. Lewis |
| United States Ambassador to the 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 | July 4, 1916 Troy, New York, U.S. |
| Died | February 12, 2009 (aged 92) |
| Spouse |
Elizabeth Jane Taylor
(died 1996) |
| Children | 3 |
| Education |
|
Malcolm Toon (July 4, 1916 – February 12, 2009)[1] was an American diplomat who served as a Foreign Service Officer in Moscow in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, during the Cold War, ultimately becoming the ambassador to the Soviet Union.
Toon was born July 4, 1916, in Troy, New York, where his father was a stonecutter, shortly after his parents had emigrated from Scotland.[2][3] The family returned to Scotland when he was 6, before then resettling in Northborough, Massachusetts. Toon received an A. B. Degree from Tufts University in 1937, and an M.A. degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University in 1938.[2] He served in the United States Navy from 1942 to 1946.[4] In the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II, he was a PT boat skipper, and received the Bronze Star Medal for valor.[5]
A resident of Southern Pines, North Carolina, Toon was married to Elizabeth Jane Taylor until her death in 1996. They are interred at Arlington National Cemetery.[2] Toon died at a hospital in Pinehurst, North Carolina, on February 12, 2009, aged 92. His death was reported in local media and mentioned by the Foreign 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]
