John Moors Cabot

American diplomat

John Moors Cabot

United States Ambassador to Poland
In office
March 2, 1962 – September 24, 1965
President| John F. Kennedy
Lyndon B. Johnson
Preceded by| Jacob D. Beam
Succeeded by| John A. Gronouski
United States Ambassador to Brazil
In office
July 22, 1959 – August 17, 1961
President| Dwight Eisenhower
John F. Kennedy
Preceded by| Ellis O. Briggs
Succeeded by| Lincoln Gordon
United States Ambassador to Colombia
In office
July 12, 1957 – July 15, 1959
President| Dwight Eisenhower
Preceded by| Philip Bonsal
Succeeded by| Dempster McIntosh
United States Ambassador to Sweden
In office
May 6, 1954 – May 14, 1957
President| Dwight Eisenhower
Preceded by| William Walton Butterworth
Succeeded by| Francis White
4th Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs
In office
March 3, 1953 – March 1, 1954
President| Dwight Eisenhower
Preceded by| Edward G. Miller Jr.
Succeeded by| Henry F. Holland
United States Ambassador to Finland
In office
February 27, 1950 – September 20, 1952
President| Harry Truman
Preceded by| Avra M. Warren
Succeeded by| Jack K. McFall
Personal details
Born| December 11, 1901
Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died| February 24, 1981(1981-02-24) (aged 79)
Washington, D.C.
Spouse|

Elizabeth Lewis

(m. 1932)​

(1906-1992)
Children| John Godfrey Lowell Cabot
Lewis Cabot
Parent(s)| Godfrey Lowell Cabot
Maria Moors Cabot
Education| Buckingham Browne & Nichols
Alma mater| Harvard University (1923)
Oxford University
Occupation| Diplomat, U.S. Ambassador

John Moors Cabot (December 11, 1901 – February 24, 1981) was an American diplomat and U.S. Ambassador to five nations during the Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy administrations. He also served as Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs.[1] He warned repeatedly of the dangers of Soviet communism toward American interests in Latin America.

## Early life

[edit]

Cabot was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[2] His father was Godfrey Lowell Cabot (1861–1962),[2] founder of Cabot Corporation[3] and a philanthropist. His mother was Maria Moors Cabot. Two of his siblings were Thomas Dudley Cabot[4] (b. 1897), businessman and philanthropist, and Eleanor Cabot of the Eleanor Cabot Bradley Estate.[5]

Cabot graduated from Buckingham Browne & Nichols in 1919.[6] He would go on to graduate magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1923, and from Oxford University with a degree in Modern History.[2]

## Career

[edit]

Cabot joined the US Foreign Service in 1926. Much of his early career was spent in Latin America. His first Foreign Service assignment was as a consul in Callao-Lima, Peru, in 1927. For the next eight years, he served in the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Brazil. From 1935 to 1939, he served first in the Netherlands and then in Sweden. From 1939 to 1941, he was in Guatemala.[7]

During much of World War II, Cabot worked in the State Department as assistant chief of the division of American Republics and then as chief of the division of Caribbean and Central American affairs.[7]

Cabot (centre) in Shanghai in 1948 with Mayor K.C. Wu to his left

He was posted to Argentina after the war and, then, in 1947, he was appointed counsellor of the US Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. He was then appointed US Consul General in Shanghai between 1948 and 1949 and was in post when the Communist troops took over the city in May, 1949.[7]

Cabot served a U.S. Ambassador to Sweden from 1954 to 1957, Colombia from 1957 to 1959, Brazil from 1959 to 1961, and Poland from 1962 to 1965,[1][8] during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administration. He was also commissioned to Pakistan during a recess of the Senate, but did not serve under this appointment.[9] From 1953 to 1954, he also served as Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs.[1] There is a 27 page transcript from an interview of Cabot, discussing the Alliance for Progress, Bay of Pigs invasion, Cold War, foreign policy, and international relations during the Kennedy administration, archived in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.[10]

As ambassador to Brazil, 1959–1961 his public relations campaigns on behalf of American business angered nationalist politicians and journalists. President Jânio Quadros of Brazil publicly rebuked Cabot for questioning Brazil's foreign policy and tolerance of the Cuban revolution. President John Kennedy recalled Cabot early in 1961.[11][12]

In December 1954, Cabot, in his role as U.S. ambassador to Sweden, attended the Nobel banquet and read the acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Literature awarded that year to Ernest Hemingway who was not present due to ill health.[13]

Following his retirement from the U.S. Department of State, he taught at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and Tufts Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.[2] In 1981, Tuft's John M. and Elizabeth L. Cabot Intercultural Center was named in honor of Cabot and his wife.[14]

## Personal life

[edit]

In 1932, he married Vassar College graduate Elizabeth Lewis (d. 1992).[15] Together, they were the parents of four children:[16][17]

* John G.L. Cabot (b. 1934)[18]
* Lewis P. Cabot (1937-2019), owner of the Portland, Maine-based Southworth Machine Company[19]
* Marjorie Cabot, who married Antonio Enríquez Savignac (1931–2007) in 1957.[20]
* Elizabeth T. Cabot, who married Bogislav von Wentzel.[21]

Cabot died at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C., on February 24, 1981.[22]

## Published works

[edit]

* The Racial Conflict in Transylvania: A Discussion of the Conflicting Claims of Rumania and Hungary to Transylvania, the Banat, and the Eastern Section of the Hungarian Plain, 1926
* Toward Our Common American Destiny: Speeches and Interviews on Latin American Problems, 1954
* First line of defense: forty years' experiences of a career diplomat (Georgetown University, School of Foreign Service, 1979).

## References

[edit]

1. ^ a b c "The Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum Finding Aids: C". Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum. Retrieved July 28, 2011.
2. ^ a b c d "John Moore (sic) Cabot is dead at 79; U.S. Ambassador to 5 countries". New York Times. February 25, 1981. Retrieved March 29, 2008.
3. ^ "The History of Cabot Corporation". Cabot Corporation. Retrieved July 26, 2011.
4. ^ "Thomas Cabot, 98, Capitalist And Philanthropist, Is Dead". New York Times. June 10, 1995. Retrieved July 26, 2011.
5. ^ Town & Country, Volumes 75-76. February 20, 1919. Retrieved July 28, 2011. `{{cite book}}`: `|work=` ignored (help)
6. ^ "Giving Programs: Endowment & Spendable Funds". Buckingham Browne & Nichols. Archived from the original on October 5, 2011. Retrieved July 26, 2011.
7. ^ a b c Washington Post, Obituary, 25 February 1981
8. ^ "John Moors Cabot - People - Department History". history.state.gov. Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs United States Department of State. Retrieved 12 February 2018.
9. ^ "Department History People: JOHN MOORS CABOT(1901-1981)". Bureau of Public Affairs Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved July 28, 2011.
10. ^ "John Moors Cabot Oral History Interview - JFK #1, 1/27/1971". John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. Retrieved July 28, 2011.
11. ^ Bruce W. Jentleson and Thomas G. Paterson, eds. Encyclopedia of US foreign relations. (1997) 1:207.
12. ^ Streeter, Stephen M. "Campaigning against Latin American Nationalism: US Ambassador John Moors Cabot in Brazil, 1959-1961." The Americas 51.2 (1994): 193-218.
13. ^ "Ernest Hemingway's Banquet Speech". nobelprize.org. December 10, 1954. Retrieved November 30, 2012.
14. ^ Miller, Russell (1986). "Light on the Hill, Volume II". Tufts Digital Library. Retrieved August 26, 2011.
15. ^ Smith, J. Y. (27 December 1992). "E.L. CABOT, AMBASSADOR'S WIFE, DIES". The Washington Post. Retrieved 12 February 2018.
16. ^ "A Guide to the John Moors Cabot papers, 1929-1980". Tufts Digital Library. 2008. Retrieved August 26, 2011.
17. ^ Jensen, Michael C. (12 March 1972). "The Cabots of Boston". The New York Times. Retrieved 12 February 2018.
18. ^ Jensen, Michael C. (1972-03-12). "The Cabots of Boston". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-01-29.
19. ^ "Obituary: Lewis P. Cabot". Press Herald. 2020-01-12. Retrieved 2022-01-29.
20. ^ "MARJORIE CABOT WILL BE MARRIED; Daughter of the U.S. Envoy to Colombia Is Fiancee of Antonio Enriquez". The New York Times. 28 July 1957. Retrieved 12 February 2018.
21. ^ "WEDDINGS; Severa von Wentzel, Adam Boswick". The New York Times. 25 July 1999. Retrieved 12 February 2018.
22. ^ Smith, J. Y. (25 February 1981). "Diplomat John Moors Cabot, 79, Dies". Washington Post. Retrieved 12 February 2018.

## Further reading

[edit]

* Streeter, Stephen M. "Campaigning against Latin American Nationalism: US Ambassador John Moors Cabot in Brazil, 1959-1961." The Americas 51.2 (1994): 193-218.

## External links

[edit]

* John Moors Cabot at U.S. Department of State

Government offices

Preceded by

Edward G. Miller Jr.

|  Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs
March 3, 1953 – March 1, 1954  | Succeeded by

Henry F. Holland

Diplomatic posts
Preceded by

Avra M. Warren

|  United States Ambassador to Finland
February 27, 1950 – September 20, 1952  | Succeeded by

Jack K. McFall

Preceded by

W. Walton Butterworth

|  United States Ambassador to Sweden
May 6, 1954 – May 14, 1957  | Succeeded by

Francis White

Preceded by

Philip Bonsal

|  United States Ambassador to Colombia
July 12, 1957 – July 15, 1959  | Succeeded by

Dempster McIntosh

Preceded by

Ellis O. Briggs

|  United States Ambassador to Brazil
July 22, 1959 – August 17, 1961  | Succeeded by

Lincoln Gordon

Preceded by

Jacob D. Beam

|  United States Ambassador to Poland
March 2, 1962 – September 24, 1965  | Succeeded by

John A. Gronouski

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