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Frederick Vreeland

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Frederick Vreeland
United States Ambassador to Morocco
In office
May 7, 1992 – March 1, 1993
PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush
Bill Clinton
Preceded byMichael Ussery
Succeeded byMarc Ginsberg
Vice President of John Cabot University
In office
1989–1991
Personal details
Born (1927-06-24) June 24, 1927 (age 97)
Danbury, Connecticut, United States
Political partyDemocrat[1]
ChildrenNicholas Vreeland
Parent(s)Thomas Reed Vreeland
Diana Vreeland
Alma materYale University (BA)
Military service
Allegiance United States
Branch/service United States Navy (Reserve)
Years of service1945–1947

Frederick Dalziel Vreeland (born June 24, 1927) is an American career diplomat and writer whose final appointment was as United States Ambassador to Morocco.

Early life

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The son of fashion editor Diana Vreeland (1903–1989) and the banker Thomas Reed Vreeland (1899–1966), Vreeland served in the United States Navy Reserve from 1945 to 1947, then was educated at Yale.[2]

Career

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In 1951 Vreeland became an Operations Officer with the Central Intelligence Agency and served until 1985. During that time, his foreign service diplomatic assignments were: Economic Officer, US Mission to the UN European Office (1952–1957); Economic Officer, US Mission to West Berlin (1957–1960); Political Officer, US Embassy Bonn, West Germany (1960–1963); Member, National Security Council, at the White House (1963); Economic Officer, US Embassy Rabat, Morocco (1963–1967); Political Officer, United States Mission to the United Nations (1967–1971); Political Officer, Embassy of the United States, Paris (1971–1978); Political Officer, Embassy of the United States, Rome (1978–1985). In the Summer of 1963 he served temporarily as a member of the National Security Agency in Washington, DC., in order to brief President John F. Kennedy in preparation for the latter's visit to Berlin in June 1963. At Kennedy's request, during one of the last of these briefings, he invented the phrase "Ich bin ein Berliner" and carefully taught the president how to pronounce those German words. This is confirmed by the Kennedy Memorial Library.[3]

Vreeland was Vice President of John Cabot University from 1989 to 1991. In 1990, he was nominated by President George H. W. Bush as United States Ambassador to Burma, but his nomination was not acted upon by the United States Senate and he instead served as ambassador to Morocco, taking up the appointment in 1991.[3]

While in Rome, Vreeland had the peculiar experience of being asked to be part of a team of acting & public-speaking coaches assembled to prepare the very inexperienced Sofia Coppola for a difficult scene in her father Francis's The Godfather: Part III.[4] In 2005, while living in retirement in Rome, Vreeland urged senators not to confirm John Bolton as US ambassador to the United Nations, saying he had no diplomatic bone in his body and was unworthy of their trust.[1]

References

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  1. ^ a b Sonni Efron, Ex-Diplomat Calls U.N. Nominee ‘Unworthy’, Los Angeles Times, April 26, 2005, accessed June 14, 2021
  2. ^ "Biographic Register". 1974.
  3. ^ a b "Council of American Ambassadors Membership Frederick Vreeland" retrieved April 17, 2012 Archived 2010-09-17 at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ Syme, Rachel (22 January 2024). "Sofia Coppola's Path to Filming Gilded Adolescence". TheNewYorker.com. Conde Nast. Retrieved 31 January 2024.
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Diplomatic posts
Preceded by U.S. Ambassador to Morocco
May 7, 1992 – March 1, 1993 		Succeeded by


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