Walter P. McConaughy

Who was Walter P. McConaughy?

Walter Patrick McConaughy, Jr. was a career American diplomat. McConaughy attended Duke University, graduating in 1930. Afterwards, he worked in the US State Department, and was posted to Hong Kong around 1950. McConaughy's reports from that period show a burning clarity in their analysis of Chinese Communist propaganda and the currents of information available in Hong Kong. After returning to Washington to serve alongside Edwin M. Martin and O.E. Clubb in the office of Chinese Affairs, he served as the Ambassador to Burma from May 1957 to November 1959. He then accepted an offer to become the Ambassador to South Korea, a post he held from 1959 to 1961, later becoming the Ambassador to Pakistan from 1962 to 1966 and the Ambassador to the Republic of China from 1966 to 1974. His obituary appeared in The New York Times.