Walworth Barbour

Biography

A graduate of Harvard University, Barbour was one of the longest serving American diplomats in a foreign post, and was described by the Jerusalem Post as a "sagacious political intelligence who could continuously and precisely define for his own country and for his hosts the political aims of both, and more specifically the limits and tolerance of both." In 1961 Barbour was appointed as Ambassador to Israel by President John F. Kennedy. He remained at the post through the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson and passed up an appointment as Ambassador to the Soviet Union by Richard Nixon.

He was considered as a diplomat who was sensitive to the needs of Israel. At a dinner in his honor, Israel Prime Minister Golda Meir said about Barbour "There's no big deal in having an Israel-American friendship society when you have friends like Nixon in the White House and Wally in Israel."

He was the Ambassador of Israel during the Six-Day War and the USS Liberty incident, in which a US technical research ship was attacked in error after being mistaken for an Egyptian ship.

He was also a diplomat in Greece, Bulgaria, Italy, Iraq and Egypt, and in the early 1950s he was counselor of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. He retired from the Foreign Service after he left Israel in 1973.

The Walworth Barbour American International School in Israel (WBAIS) in Even Yehuda, Israel, and a youth center in Tel-Aviv are named after him.

Positions held in the United States Diplomatic Service

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