William Howard Taft III

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President Dwight D. Eisenhower Name William Taft Cousins Seth Taft Profession Diplomat Children William Howard Taft IV		Succeeded by Scott McLeod Political party Republican Party Preceded by Francis P. Matthews Died February 23, 1991

Born August 7, 1915 ( 1915-08-07 ) Relations William Howard Taft (grandfather)Helen Herron Taft (grandmother) Parents Martha Wheaton Bowers Taft, Robert A. Taft Similar People William Howard Taft, Robert A Taft, William Howard Taft IV, Charles Phelps Taft II, Alphonso Taft

William Howard Taft III being greeted by Sean Thomas O'Kelly,Frank Aiken and othe...HD Stock Footage

William Howard Taft III (August 7, 1915 — February 23, 1991) was an American diplomat who served as United States Ambassador to Ireland from 1953 to 1957, and was a grandson of President William Howard Taft and First Lady Helen Louise "Nellie" Taft.

William Howard Taft III gets ambassadorship in Ireland

Early life

William Howard Taft III was born on August 7, 1915, and was the eldest of four sons born to Robert Alphonso Taft (1889–1953) and Martha Wheaton Bowers (1889–1958), daughter of Lloyd Wheaton Bowers (1859–1910), the former solicitor general of the United States from 1909 to 1910. His three brothers were:

Robert Alphonso Taft Jr. (1917–1993), who was elected to the U.S. Senate

Lloyd Bowers Taft (1923–1985), who worked as an investment banker in Cincinnati,

Horace Dwight Taft (1925–1983), who became a professor of physics and dean at Yale.

At the time of his birth, his grandfather had just ended his Presidency and had recently become the Kent Professor of Law and Legal History at Yale Law School. Taft graduated from Yale University and earned a doctorate from Princeton University.

Career

After graduating from Princeton, Taft taught English at the University of Maryland and Haverford College. During World War II, Taft became an analyst in military intelligence. After the war ended, he went back to Yale and taught there.

In 1949, he went to Dublin as part of the Marshall Plan aid mission and worked for the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Department from 1951 to 1953.

Ambassador to Ireland

In 1953, President Eisenhower appointed Taft U.S. ambassador to Ireland. His task as ambassador was made easier by the fact that John A. Costello (Taoiseach, 1954–57) was a personal friend; Taft described Costello as "pleasant and unassuming" whereas he had found Éamon de Valera "formal and aloof". (His predecessor, George A. Garrett, had also found Costello more sympathetic than de Valera.) Taft played a considerable part in organizing Costello's successful state visit to the United States in March 1956.

In 1957, Eisenhower appointed R. W. Scott McLeod as his successor to the Ambassadorship and Taft returned to the State Department as a member of its policy planning staff. He remained with State until 1960, when he became Consul General in Mozambique. He retired from the State Department's bureau for scientific, environmental and space affairs in 1977.

Personal life

Taft married Barbara Bradfield, with whom he had four children:

John Thomas Taft

William Howard Taft IV (b. 1945), who married Julia Vadala (1942–2008)

Maria Herron Taft, who married John Clemow, son of Albert George Clemow, in 1971.

Martha Bowers Taft, who married Michael Golden, son of the British Michael Golden, in 1971.

Taft was a member of the Metropolitan Club of Washington, D.C. He died of prostate cancer at his Washington home on February 23, 1991.

References

William Howard Taft III Wikipedia

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