19 Facts About Elbridge Durbrow

Elbridge Durbrow was a Foreign Service officer and diplomat who served as the Counselor of Embassy and Deputy Chief of Mission in Moscow in the late 1940s and then as the US ambassador to South Vietnam from March 14,1957, to April 16,1961.

Elbridge Durbrow supported the Diem regime until late 1960, when he reported that the situation was deteriorating and that unless steps were taken to reform the government, Diem would be likely overthrown in a coup, or lose the country to the Viet Cong.

Diem and his American supporters worked to get Durbrow transferred, and he was recalled by President John F Kennedy in 1961, and sent to a diplomatic role with NATO in Europe.

Elbridge Durbrow then continued his education at Stanford University, the University of Dijon in France, The Hague Academy of International Law in the Netherlands, the Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques in Paris and finally the University of Chicago, where he studied international economics and finance.

Elbridge Durbrow began his career in the US Foreign Service by serving as Vice Consul at the American embassy in Poland.

Elbridge Durbrow rose through the service's ranks over the next decade and served in Bucharest, Naples, Rome, Lisbon, and Moscow.

In 1941, Elbridge Durbrow became the assistant chief of the US State Department's Eastern European affairs division.

In 1944, Elbridge Durbrow was appointed as the chief of the Eastern European division of the State Department in Washington, DC.

Elbridge Durbrow warned Smith and others of Soviet expansionism and efforts to break up the Western world.

Elbridge Durbrow often had to work with the authoritarian regime of Ngo Dinh Diem and the corruption and ineffective policymaking that accompanied it.

South Vietnamese officers, disgruntled with Diem's government, tried to persuade Elbridge Durbrow into joining anti-Diem groups.

Elbridge Durbrow began to feel uneasy about Diem's authority, had to refuse because the US government was still supported Diem.

In 1960, Diem and his younger brother and chief political adviser, Ngo Dinh Nhu, accused Elbridge Durbrow of supporting a failed coup attempt by paratroopers of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam.

Elbridge Durbrow later recalled receiving a phone call from one of Diem's aides, who asked him to tell Diem to surrender or face a howitzer attack on the presidential palace.

Elbridge Durbrow later learned that the aide had been forced to make the call.

Later, Elbridge Durbrow served as a delegate to the NATO Council in Paris and later as a government adviser to the National War College and the Air University.

Elbridge Durbrow spent the next two decades writing and lecturing on foreign affairs.

Elbridge Durbrow died at his home in Walnut Creek, California on May 16,1997, from complications of a stroke.

Elbridge Durbrow was survived by his second wife, Benice Balcom Durbrow, and two sons from his first marriage, Chandler and Bruce.