Charlton Ogburn
| Charlton Ogburn | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Charlton Ogburn 15 March 1911 Atlanta, Georgia |
| Died | 19 October 1998 (aged 87) Beaufort, South Carolina |
| Nationality | US |
| Occupation | soldier; writer |
| Years active | 1932–1998 |
| Notable work |
The Marauders The Winter Beach The Mysterious William Shakespeare |
Charlton Ogburn Jr. (15 March 1911, Atlanta, Georgia – 19 October 1998, Beaufort, South Carolina) was an American journalist and author, most notably of memoirs and non-fiction works. Before he established himself as a writer he served in the US army, and then as a State Department official, specialising in South-East Asian affairs.
In his later years he was best known as an advocate of the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship, leading the revival of public interest in the theory in the 1980s. He wrote over a dozen books and numerous magazine articles.
Ogburn was the son of lawyer Charlton Greenwood Ogburn and writer Dorothy Ogburn née Stevens. His uncle was the sociologist William Fielding Ogburn. He was raised in Savannah and New York City, graduated from Harvard in 1932 and wrote and worked in publishing. During World War II he joined military intelligence, serving in the East Asian theater, most notably as communications officer for Merrill's Marauders. He left with the rank of captain. He returned to the US to begin a career with the State Department. From 1946 to 1949, he worked at the Division of South-East Asian Affairs. He went on to work at the Department of State. He held several posts, including Political Advisor to the United States Delegation to the United Nations Security Council's Committee of Good Offices for the Indonesian Dispute.
Ogburn was among the first State Department officials to explicitly oppose the growing U.S. involvement in the First Indochina War, which would later evolve into the Vietnam war. In 1950 he wrote a memo in which he predicted that Ho Chi Minh would not "wilt" under the impact of American aid to the colonial French forces, and that any military victory would simply send Ho's troops "underground until a more propitious occasion presented itself". Ogburn also unsuccessfully opposed American policy of supporting the Vietnamese monarchy of Bảo Đại.
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