Neil Truscott

Neil Truscott AM
Born	14 January 1923 Warrnambool, Victoria, Australia
Died	23 January 2011 (aged 88) Canberra, Australia
Nationality	Australian
Occupation	Public servant, diplomat

Horace Neil Truscott AM (14 January 1923 – 23 January 2011) was an Australian public servant and diplomat.

Born in Warnambool, Victoria on 14 January 1293, Neil Truscott moved to Perth when he was 8. He studied at Wesley College, then at a university for a year (law), before enlisting in the Royal Australian Navy for two years. He was accepted into the Department of External Affairs during World War II, one of 12 accepted into the diplomatic service from 1600 applicants.^[1]

His early diplomatic posts were in Washington, Singapore, Jakarta and Bonn.^[2] From February 1966 to 1970, Truscott was Australian Consul-General in San Francisco.^[3][4] In the role, Truscott attended several functions each week, often at universities in the Bay Area, and fielded many questions about the White Australia policy which had by that time been abolished.^[5]

In 1977 he moved to Bagdad as the first Australian resident ambassador to Iraq.^[6] Ahead of the move, he studied Arabic at the Australian National University.^[7] He was appointed Australian Ambassador to Syria, Jordan and Lebanon in September 1978.^[8]

Truscott was made a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2002 Queen's Birthday Honours, for service through a range of community and social welfare organisations in Canberra, and to international relations through the Australian Diplomatic Service and the Australasian Middle East Studies Association.^[9]

Truscott died in Canberra on 23 January 2011.^[1]

References

1. "Vale Neil Truscott AM" (PDF), The Link, Toc H, 71 (1): 9–11, March 2011, archived (PDF) from the original on 25 January 2014
2. Summary of 1994 sound recording: Neil Truscott interviewed by Michael Wilson for the Australian diplomacy 1950-1990 oral history project, retrieved 15 November 2016
3. CA 1321: Australian Consulate-General, San Francisco [United States of America], National Archives of Australia, retrieved 12 November 2016
4. "The Truscotts get ready to disperse". The Canberra Times. 15 January 1969. p. 18.
5. Mathers, Tony (16 November 2011), Working /Living in San Francisco in the Sixties, archived from the original on 15 November 2016
6. "Bagdad post". The Canberra Times. 28 October 1976. p. 17.
7. "An intensive course in Arabic for the holidays". The Canberra Times. 3 February 1977. p. 15.
8. "Envoy to Syria". The Canberra Times. 27 September 1978. p. 3.
9. "Members (AM) in the general division". The Sydney Morning Herald. Fairfax Media. 10 June 2002. Archived from the original on 10 June 2002.