McGaughey, Charles

Charles E. McGaughey was born in North Bay, Ontario on November 26, 1917. He graduated from Queens University with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1938 and a Master of Arts Degree in 1939. During the summer of 1939, he attended the Student International Union Conference in Switzerland. He obtained a diploma in International Relations at the University of Chicago in 1940-41, and worked as a political correspondent with Sudbury Star and North Bay Nugget. In October of 1941 he married Jessie Porter; that same year, he joined the Canadian Armed Forces as a Private. He attended the Canadian Army Japanese Language School in Vancouver, and served during WWII in the United Kingdom and South East Asia, receiving his Discharge as Captain from the Armed Forces in 1947.

His first diplomatic posting was as Vice Consul with the Canadian Department of External Affairs to Chicago 1948-49; he was then posted to Tokyo as Third Secretary at the Canadian Embassy until 1952 when he returned to Ottawa. From 1955-57 he was posted as the First Secretary to the Canadian High Commissioners Office in New Delhi, and was then posted as Acting High Commissioner for Canada to Wellington, New Zealand until 1958. Posted at home in Ottawa until 1962, he was then posted to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia as Canadian High Commissioner, and at the same time, as the Canadian Ambassador to Burma and the first Canadian Ambassador to Thailand.

In 1965 he was appointed High Commissioner to Ghana in Accra; and concurrently as Ambassador to Guinea, Ivory Coast, Togo and Upper Volta.

In 1966, he was posted as Canadian High Commissioner to Pakistan in Aslamabad; and from 1966-68 also received the concurrent posting of first Canadian Ambassador to Afghanistan. A year later he was appointed Canadian Ambassador to Israel, and concurrently as High Commissioner to Cyprus until 1972.

In 1972 he returned to Canada and was appointed Deputy Commandant of the National Defence College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario. He held this position until 1974 when he chose to take early retirement and move to Cloyne, Ontario, a small community located midway between Kingston and Ottawa. He lived in Cloyne until the fall of 1991 when he moved with his wife to Prince George, British Columbia to join his two sons and their families. He died in Prince George on October 28, 1999.

Revised January 17, 2012.

• English