Jack Foust Matlock Jr. (born October 1, 1929) is an American former ambassador, career Foreign Service Officer, teacher, historian, and linguist. He was a specialist in Soviet affairs during some of the most tumultuous years of the Cold War, and served as the U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987 to 1991.
Matlock became interested in Russia as a Duke University undergraduate, and after studies at Columbia University and a stint as a Russian-language instructor at Dartmouth College, entered the Foreign Service in 1956. His 35-year career encompassed much of the Cold War period between the Soviet Union and the United States. His first assignment to Moscow was in 1961, and it was from the embassy there that he experienced the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, helping to translate diplomatic messages between the leaders. The next year he was posted to West Africa, and he later served in East Africa, during the post-colonial period of superpower rivalry.
At the beginning of détente, he was director of Soviet affairs in the State Department, and began to participate in the summit meetings between the leaders, eventually attending all but one of the U.S.–Soviet summits held in the 20-year period 1972–91. Matlock was back in Moscow in 1974, serving in the number two position in the embassy for four years. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in early 1980 ended the period of reduced tensions. Matlock was assigned to Moscow again in 1981 as acting ambassador during the first part of Ronald Reagan's presidency. Reagan appointed him as ambassador to Czechoslovakia and later asked him to return to Washington in 1983 to work at the National Security Council, with the assignment to develop a negotiating strategy to end the arms race. When Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union in 1985, arms negotiations and summit meetings resumed. Matlock was appointed ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1987 and saw the last years of the Soviet Union before he retired from the Foreign Service in 1991.
After leaving the Foreign Service, he wrote an account of the end of the Soviet Union titled Autopsy on an Empire, followed by an account of the end of the Cold War titled Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended, establishing his reputation as a historian. He joined the faculty of the Institute for Advanced Study and he went on to teach diplomacy at several New England colleges. In 1998, Matlock was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
Biography Born on October 1, 1929 in Greensboro, North Carolina,Hearings, United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs, 1971. Jack Matlock graduated from Greensboro Senior High School (see Grimsley High School) in 1946, married Rebecca Burrum in 1949, graduated summa cum laude from Duke University in 1950, and later earned an M.A. from Columbia University in 1952. He taught Russian language and literature at Dartmouth College from 1953 to 1956.
He joined the Foreign Service in 1956, and served in Vienna, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Moscow, Accra, Zanzibar, and Dar es Salaam. He was Director of Soviet Affairs in the State Department (1971–74), Diplomat in Residence at Vanderbilt University (1978–79), and deputy director of the Foreign Service Institute (1979–80). He served as U.S. ambassador to Czechoslovakia (1981–83) and as special assistant to the president for national security affairs and senior director for European and Soviet affairs on the National Security Council Staff (1983–86). His languages are Czech, French, German, Russian, and Swahili.
Matlock was US president Ronald Reagan's choice for the position of ambassador to the Soviet Union, serving from 1987 to 1991. His previous tours in Moscow were as vice consul and third secretary (1961–1963), minister counsellor and deputy chief of mission (1974–1978), and chargé d'affaires ad interim (1981).
After he retired from the Foreign Service in 1991, Matlock reentered the academic world, becoming the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of the Practice of International Diplomacy at Columbia. After five years in that position he moved to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, where he was George F. Kennan Professor from 1996 to 2001. Matlock has held visiting appointments at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, at Hamilton College, at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs and at Mount Holyoke College. He has been awarded honorary doctorates by Greensboro College, Albright College and Connecticut College. Matlock completed his dissertation and received his Ph.D. from the Columbia University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at their commencement ceremony on May 22, 2013.
Together, Jack and Rebecca Matlock had five children and three grandchildren. In later years they divided their time between a home in Princeton and her family's farm in Booneville, Tennessee. Rebecca died in 2019 and Matlock subsequently married Grace Baliunas Austin.
Russian captivation By his own account, Matlock became captivated by Russia having read Dostoyevsky as an undergraduate at Duke University. He went on to study Russian language and area studies at the Russian Institute at Columbia University, and became convinced that the principal challenge of American diplomacy in the post World War II period would be dealing with the Soviet Union. After his 1953 appointment to a position as Russian Instructor at Dartmouth College, he supplemented his income by preparing an index to Joseph Stalin's collected works on contract with the State Department. Because in 1956 the Soviet Union was a closed society, he decided his best chance to get to know Russia was to join the Foreign Service and become a diplomat. His ultimate career goal was clear from the beginning:
…when I entered the Foreign Service I shocked a lot of people by what seemed to be overweening ambition when I was asked "What do you want out of the Foreign Service?" I stated frankly, "I want to be the American ambassador to the Soviet Union."
Moscow: as Third Secretary After a tour in Vienna, Austria and Russian language training at the U.S. Army Russian Institute in Oberammergau, Matlock arrived in Moscow for the first time in 1961. Initially a Vice Consul, Matlock met with individuals seeking to visit or emigrate to the United States. His most famous case was Lee Harvey Oswald, who applied for a repatriation loan to return to the United States after having previously moved to the Soviet Union. Indeed, according to the records received by the Warren Commission, in May 1962, Jack Matlock conducted the exit interview which enabled the Oswald family to leave the USSR and return to the USA.
After a year, Matlock was promoted to Third Secretary in the Political Section. American foreign policy with regard to the Soviet Union, known as containment, had been articulated in 1947 by George F. Kennan, who was later to become a good friend of Matlock's. The American policy was basically to contain the spread of Communism, in the expectation that it would eventually collapse of internal contradictions. This did not prevent discussions between the Superpowers. In June 1961, President John F. Kennedy and First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev met in Vienna, and in December the United Nations General Assembly approved a draft joint resolution on principles for negotiating disarmament. This period also saw the beginnings of U.S. - U.S.S.R. cultural exchanges, notably the visit of poet Robert Frost to Moscow.
The containment policy was tested during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Matlock, along with Richard Davies and Herbert Okun, translated communications between President John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev.
Ghana and Tanzania In late 1963, the Matlocks left Moscow for West Africa, arriving in Accra, Ghana. Kwame Nkrumah had become the first president of newly independent Ghana and post-colonial Africa was to be a venue for competition between the U.S. and Soviet Union for influence.
In 1967, Matlock was sent to East Africa to serve on Zanzibar as consul. It was his first opportunity to be head of a Foreign Service post. His predecessor as consul, Frank Carlucci, was later to become Secretary of Defense, and his successor, Thomas R. Pickering, was later to become Ambassador to the U.N.
Matlock's next assignment was as Deputy Chief of Mission in the capital of Tanzania, Dar es Salaam. Even in Africa, knowledge of Soviet Affairs proved useful. With Leonid Brezhnev in power, Soviet foreign policy as of 1968 was dictated by the Brezhnev Doctrine, which held that, once a country became Communist, it was never to leave the Soviet sphere of influence.
Washington: as Director of Soviet Affairs In 1971 Matlock became Director of Soviet Affairs in the State Department. During Richard Nixon's presidency, a period known as détente, there was a reduction of Cold War tension. Matlock participated in the negotiation of arms control treaties and other bilateral agreements. In fact, he attended every one of the U.S.-Soviet summits for the 20-year period 1972–1991, with the exception of the 1979 Carter - Brezhnev summit.
+ Summit Meetings 1972–79 Leaders Topic Venue Dates ReferenceNixon - Brezhnev SALT I and ABM Treaties Moscow May 26, 1972Nixon - Brezhnev Official Visit Washington June 18–26, 1973Nixon - BrezhnevOfficial VisitMoscow, Simferopol, Minsk June 27-July 3, 1974Ford - BrezhnevSALT IVladivostokNovember 23, 1974Ford - BrezhnevHelsinki Final Act HelsinkiAugust 1, 1975Carter - BrezhnevSALT II TreatyViennaJune 16–18, 1979
Moscow: as Deputy Chief of Mission After four years in Washington, he spent four years as Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM), the number two position, at Embassy Moscow. These years cemented his reputation within the State Department as a Soviet expert. In early 1976, the State Department made public the fact that the Soviet Union had been beaming microwaves at the Moscow Embassy from a nearby building for many years. This caused concern about possible health effects of the low-level microwave radiation. Ironically, it was Soviet research that documented the psychological symptoms of sensitivity to microwave exposure. In the United States, the standards for safe exposure to microwaves were much more lenient than in the Soviet Union.
The August 26, 1977 ABC Evening News covered the story of a major fire at the embassy. Despite the severity of the fire, all personnel were evacuated safely, and the efforts of the embassy staff elicited a commendation from President Jimmy Carter. Former KGB agent Victor Sheymov testified before Congress in 1998 that the fire was deliberately induced by the Soviets in an effort to gain access to sensitive areas by agents posing as firemen.
Stateside Matlock returned to the United States and taught for a year at Vanderbilt University under the 'Diplomats in Residence' program. The following year, he came to Washington DC to take the number two position at the Foreign Service Institute, the State Department's language training school.
In January 1980, in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, President Carter postponed consideration of the SALT-2 Treaty and imposed a trade embargo. Also in 1980, the new embassy under construction in Moscow was found to be so riddled with listening devices that it would be unusable for secure work.
Moscow: as Chargé d'Affaires Matlock returned to Moscow in 1981 as acting ambassador, or chargé d'affaires. By April 24, President Reagan had cancelled the export embargo, and trade resumed. Matlock signalled the American desire for constructive engagement with the Soviets:
We are seeking an active dialogue on all levels. But a dialogue is useful only if it is candid, and we must learn not to take offense at candor but to use it to help us understand each other. - Jack F. Matlock Jr. (New York Times Quote of the Day for July 5, 1981)