Biographical note
Harold H. Tittmann, Jr. (1893-1980) was a career foreign service official who had a distinguished career spanning 38 years of service. He was born on January 8, 1893, in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Harold Hilgard Tittmann and Emma Roe (Copelin). Tittmann graduated from Yale in 1916. During World War I, he served in the U.S. Army Air Service, and he was seriously wounded in an attack. After World War I, Tittmann embarked on a foreign service career. In 1921, he became Third Secretary to the American Embassy in Paris. Then, in 1925, he was assigned to Italy. Tittmann married Eleanor Dulaney Barclay in 1928, and the couple had two sons, Harold H. Tittmann, III (born in 1929) and Barclay Tittmann (born in 1932). In 1936, the elder Tittmann worked in the U.S. State Department Division of Western European Affairs. In 1939, he was appointed Consul General in Geneva, Switzerland. Soon thereafter, in 1940, Tittmann became a part-time assistant to Myron C. Taylor, who had been appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a Special Representative to Pope Pius XII. In 1940, Tittmann worked as a Counselor to Rome, but was re-posted at the Vatican, this time as Charge d'Affaires. He stayed on as Taylor's assistant in Rome from 1944 through 1946 when he was transferred to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Haiti. From 1948 until 1955, Tittmann was U.S. Ambassador to Peru. From 1955 to 1958, he was Director of Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration. Tittmann retired from the foreign service in 1958. He devoted himself to writing his memoirs, which were published by his son in 2004. Harold H. Tittmann, Jr. died at age 87 in Manchester, Massachusetts on December 29, 1980.
Sources:
-Tittmann, Harold H., III. "Inside the Vatican of Pius XII: The Memoir of an American Diplomat During World War II" (New York: Doubleday, 2004).
- "Who Was Who in America." Vol. 8, 1985, p. 399.
