List of ambassadors of the United States to the United Nations

Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., a leading moderate Republican who lost his seat in the United States Senate to John F. Kennedy in the 1952 elections, was appointed ambassador to the United Nations in 1953 by Dwight D. Eisenhower in gratitude for the defeated senator's role in the new president's defeat of conservative leader Robert A. Taft for the 1952 Republican nomination and subsequent service as his campaign manager in the general election; Eisenhower raised the ambassadorship to Cabinet rank in order to give Lodge direct access to him without having to go through the State Department.^[1]

The ambassadorship continued to hold this status throughout the remainder of the Cold War but was removed from Cabinet rank by George H. W. Bush, who had previously held the position himself. It was restored under the Clinton administration. It was not a Cabinet-level position under the George W. Bush administration (from 2001 to 2009),^[2][3] but was once again elevated under the Obama administration, and initially retained as such by the Trump administration during the tenure of Nikki Haley.^[4] However, in December 2018, it was reported by several news organizations that the Trump administration would once again downgrade the position to non-Cabinet rank.^[5] The position was again elevated to Cabinet rank in the Biden administration.^[6]

Former UN ambassador and national security advisor John R. Bolton has publicly opposed the granting of Cabinet-level status to the office, stating "One, it overstates the role and importance the U.N. should have in U.S. foreign policy, second, you shouldn't have two secretaries in the same department".

Status

  Denotes Acting United States Ambassador to the United Nations

The following is a chronological list of those who have held the office:

#	Portrait	Ambassador	Years Served	U.S. President
1		Edward Stettinius Jr.	January 17, 1946 – June 3, 1946		Harry S. Truman
—		Herschel Johnson	June 3, 1946 – January 14, 1947 Acting
2		Warren Austin	January 14, 1947 – January 22, 1953
					Dwight D. Eisenhower
3		Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.	January 26, 1953[7] – September 3, 1960
4		James Jeremiah Wadsworth	September 8, 1960 – January 21, 1961
					John F. Kennedy
5		Adlai Stevenson II	January 23, 1961 – July 14, 1965
					Lyndon B. Johnson
6		Arthur Goldberg	July 28, 1965 – June 24, 1968
7		George Ball	June 26, 1968 – September 25, 1968
8		James Russell Wiggins	October 7, 1968 – January 20, 1969
9		Charles W. Yost	January 23, 1969 – February 25, 1971		Richard Nixon
10		George H. W. Bush	March 1, 1971 – January 18, 1973
11		John A. Scali	February 20, 1973 – June 29, 1975
					Gerald Ford
12		Daniel Patrick Moynihan	June 30, 1975 – February 2, 1976
13		William Scranton	March 15, 1976 – January 19, 1977
14		Andrew Young	January 30, 1977 – September 23, 1979		Jimmy Carter
15		Donald McHenry	September 23, 1979 – January 20, 1981
16		Jeane Kirkpatrick	February 4, 1981 – April 1, 1985		Ronald Reagan
17		Vernon A. Walters	May 22, 1985 – March 15, 1989
					George H. W. Bush
18		Thomas R. Pickering	March 20, 1989 – May 7, 1992
19		Edward J. Perkins	May 12, 1992 – January 27, 1993
					Bill Clinton
20		Madeleine Albright	January 27, 1993 – January 21, 1997
21		Bill Richardson	February 18, 1997 – August 18, 1998
—		Peter Burleigh	August 18, 1998 – September 7, 1999 Acting
22		Richard Holbrooke	September 7, 1999 – January 20, 2001
—		James B. Cunningham	January 20, 2001 – September 19, 2001 Acting		George W. Bush
23		John Negroponte	September 19, 2001 – July 23, 2004
24		John Danforth	July 23, 2004 – January 20, 2005
—		Anne W. Patterson	January 20, 2005 – August 2, 2005 Acting
25		John Bolton	August 2, 2005 – December 31, 2006
—		Alejandro Daniel Wolff	December 31, 2006 – April 30, 2007 Acting
26		Zalmay Khalilzad	April 30, 2007 – January 22, 2009
					Barack Obama
27		Susan Rice	January 26, 2009 – June 30, 2013
—		Rosemary DiCarlo	June 30, 2013 – August 5, 2013 Acting
28		Samantha Power	August 5, 2013 – January 20, 2017
—		Michele J. Sison	January 20, 2017 – January 27, 2017 Acting		Donald Trump
29		Nikki Haley	January 27, 2017 – December 31, 2018
—		Jonathan Cohen	January 1, 2019 – September 12, 2019 Acting
30		Kelly Craft	September 12, 2019 – January 20, 2021
—		Richard M. Mills Jr.	January 20, 2021 – February 25, 2021 Acting		Joe Biden
31		Linda Thomas-Greenfield	February 25, 2021 – present

The United States deputy ambassador to the United Nations serves as the second most senior American diplomat before the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council in New York and carries the diplomatic rank of ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary. In the absence of the ambassador, the deputy serves in his or her place.

• Ernest A. Gross – October 11, 1949 – 1953
• James J. Wadsworth^† February 28, 1953 – 1960
• Charles W. Yost^† – February 13, 1961 – 1966
• William B. Buffum – January 1967 – 1970
• W. Tapley Bennett Jr. – 1971–1977
• James F. Leonard – 1977–1979
• William vanden Heuvel – 1979–1981
• Kenneth L. Adelman – confirmed July 29, 1981 – 1983
• José S. Sorzano – confirmed July 26, 1983 – 1985
• Herbert S. Okun – confirmed October 1, 1985 (following a recess appointment) – 1989
• Alexander F. Watson – confirmed August 4, 1989 – 1992
• Edward S. Walker Jr. – confirmed October 8, 1992 – 1993
• Skip Gnehm – April 1994 – August 1997
• Peter Burleigh – August 1997 – December 1999
• James B. Cunningham – December 12, 1999 – July 2004
• Anne W. Patterson – August 2004 – August 2005
• Alejandro Daniel Wolff – November 2005 – June 2010
• Rosemary DiCarlo – July 8, 2010 – c. November 1, 2014
• Michele J. Sison – December 7, 2014 – February 21, 2018
• Kelley Eckels Currie (acting) – February 21, 2018 – June 8, 2018
• Jonathan Cohen – June 8, 2018 – November 17, 2019
• Taryn Frideres – October 2019 – February 25, 2021
• Richard M. Mills Jr. – November 9, 2020 – present
• Jeffrey Prescott – February 25, 2021 – February 25, 2024
• Ned Price – February 29, 2024^[8] – present^[a]

^†These deputy ambassadors later served as full U.S. ambassador to the United Nations position (see above).

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