Raymond Thurston

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Person.png Raymond Thurston PrabookRdf-entity.pngRdf-icon.png
(diplomat, spook?)
Raymond L. Thurston.png
Born1913
Saint Louis, Missouri, USA
Died1981 (Age 68)
NationalityUS
Alma materWashington University in St. Louis, University of Texas, University of Wisconsin, Foreign Service Institute, National War College
Spooky diplomat and former advisor to SACEUR Lauris Norstad who attended the 1961 Bilderberg.

Employment.png Advisor

In office
1957 - 1960
EmployerSACEUR,  Lauris Norstad
Attended Bilderberg/1961

Raymond Leroy Thurston was a US diplomat[1] whose roles suggest that he was working with the spookier aspects of diplomacy. He attended the 1961 Bilderberg conference.

Education

Thurston studied at Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Texas, and the University of Wisconsin.[2]

He took a postgraduate in Russian at the Foreign Service Institute in 1948.

He is a graduate of the National War College, 1951-1952.

Career

Thurston joined the Foreign Service in 1937. He worked in Canada, Italy, India and Washington before going to Moscow in 1949. He spent two years there as the embassy's first secretary, then was counselor of embassy from 1950 to 1951.[3]

He was deputy director and then director of the State Department's Office of Eastern European Affairs from 1952 to 1954, then served as deputy chief of mission in Athens, Greece, from 1955 to 1957. From 1957 through 1960, he was counselor of the American Embassy in Paris and political adviser to Army Gen. Lauris Norstad who was commander of NATO forces.[3]

Thurston was alternate representative of the United States delegation to NATO, 1961.[2]

He was appointed US ambassador to Haiti from 1960 to 1963. An authority on Soviet and Eastern European affairs and former NATO adviser, he was appointed ambassador to Haiti because President John F. Kennedy was impressed with Dr. Thurston's work as a field evaluator of U.S. aid programs in Iran and India.[3]

Dr. Thurston recommended that the US aid program in Haiti be suspended. It was also during this time that the Kennedy administration temporarily suspended diplomatic relations with Haiti when Haitian President Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier continued to hold the presidency after his term in office had expired. When relations on the ambassadorial level with Haiti resumed, that government refused to accept Thurston as U. S. ambassador. After teaching for a time, he was named ambassador to Somalia in 1965, a post he held until retiring four years later.[3]

 

Event Participated in

EventStartEndLocation(s)Description
Bilderberg/196121 April 196123 April 1961Canada
Quebec
St-Castin
The 10th Bilderberg, the first in Canada and the 2nd outside Europe.
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References