Lester D. Mallory

Lester DeWitt Mallory (April 21, 1904 – June 21, 1994) was an American diplomat.

Mallory was born in Houlton, Maine. He received a bachelor of science in agriculture in 1927 and a master of science in agriculture degree in 1929 from the University of British Columbia. Mallory earned a Ph.D. in agricultural economics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1935.

The son of Enrique and May Mallory, Mallory spent his early years in Oregon, Alberta, and British Columbia, and attended Naramota and Oak Bay High Schools in British Columbia from 1919 to 1922. From 1927 to 1928 Mallory was an assistant in horticulture at the University of British Columbia, and in 1929 worked as secretary of the British Columbia Fruit Growers.

Mallory began working for the United States federal government in 1931, initially for the Department of Agriculture as assistant agricultural commissioner in Marseille, to which position he was appointed June 15, 1931. Mallory was selected for this position on the basis of his expertise in analysis of horticultural products.

From July 1933 to August 1934 Mallory was assigned to Washington as an associate agricultural economist in the Agricultural Adjustment Administration of USDA, working on farm credit issues. In August 1934 he was assigned to Paris as assistant agricultural attaché. Effective June 2, 1938, he was designated acting agricultural attaché, and as of June 1, 1939, he was appointed agricultural attaché at Paris.

Mallory was evacuated to the United States with the outbreak of World War II in September 1939 and reassigned as the first U.S. agricultural attaché in Mexico City. At that time he was commissioned a Foreign Service Officer in the Department of State, as the Foreign Agricultural Service was abolished and agricultural attachés were transferred from USDA to State in that year.

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