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William Trueheart

William Trueheart (December 18, 1918 – December 24, 1992) was a diplomat in the service of the United States. He served as the U.S. ambassador to Nigeria from 1969–1971, but is better known for being the acting U.S. Ambassador and chargé d'affaires in South Vietnam from May–July 1963. Born on December 18, 1918, in Chester, Virginia, Trueheart earned a bachelor's degree (1939) and a master's degree in philosophy (1941) from the University of Virginia.Trueheart was a civilian intelligence analyst in the United States Department of the Navy 1942–43. He then served in the Army, rising to the rank of captain. In 1949 he joined the United States Department of State as an intelligence officer. Having joined the Foreign Service, Trueheart was posted to Paris in 1954 as deputy director for political affairs at the U.S. delegation to NATO in Paris. In 1958 he moved to Ankara, Turkey, to become executive assistant to the Secretary General of the Baghdad Pact in Ankara, Turkey. The following year he became first secretary of the U.S. Embassy in London, specializing in atomic energy affairs.In Saigon as of October 1961, Trueheart served as deputy chief of mission, the second-ranking U.S. diplomat in South Vietnam during what would become the final years of President Ngô Đình Diệm's rule, and during the initial buildup of U.S. military assistance to the Diem regime in its struggle against the Viet Cong. During the spring and summer of 1963, as the Buddhist crisis intensified, Trueheart's analysis of the political and military situation diverged from that of the ambassador, Frederick Nolting. As the ambassador vacationed, Trueheart warned of the possible liability to the United States of continuing to support Diem's government in South Vietnam, noted as "let[ting] loose the floodgates of doubt".