Retired U.S. Ambassador Carleton Coon, Jr. served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Rabat in 1976, the year that the Department of State agreed to allow the Tangier American Legation to be converted into a private museum honoring the historic U.S.-Moroccan friendship.
In this podcast, Emily Albrecht of Dartmouth College interviews Amb. Coon, who recounts the efforts made to restore the Legation in time for the celebrations of the U.S. Bicentennial. Ms. Albrecht’s interviews form part of a series of oral histories she recorded for her senior thesis, entitled, “Mapping Memories, Creating History: The Tangier American Legation” (May 2016), a copy of which is available in TALIM’s research library.
Amb. Coon, who passed away at age 91 in December, 2018, was profiled in a Washington Post obituary: www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituar….ae976838023e
While serving as U.S. Ambassador to Nepal, he and his wife Jane Abell Coon, who was the U.S. Ambassador to Bangladesh, were profiled in the New York Times: www.nytimes.com/1981/06/08/style/…eir-marriage.html
Ambassador Coon was the son of noted anthropologist Carlton Coon, whose field work in Morocco’s Rif Mountains led him to be selected to serve at the Tangier American Legation during World War II as head of the Office of Special Service, which he chronicled in his book, “A North Africa Story: The Anthropologist as OSS Agent.” Amb. Coon was also first cousin of TALIM Board Member Elena Prentice.
