TYLER, William R(oyall) 1910-2003

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born October 17, 1910, in Paris, France; died November 16, 2003, in Bristol, VT. Diplomat and author. Tyler made a career in the Foreign Service, most notably as ambassador to the Netherlands, and he later headed the Dumbarton Oaks Research Center. Well educated, he completed his undergraduate studies at Balliol College, Oxford, in 1933 and, after serving in the Office of War Information in Algeria and being a War Information director in France during World War II, finished a master's degree at Harvard in 1941. Born in Paris to an American father and Italian mother who was an ancestor of Napoleon Bonaparte's brother, the King of Holland, Tyler seemed bred for international service. After the war, he joined the U.S. Department of State as a counselor at the Paris embassy, becoming a consul in 1952 before being promoted to deputy director of the Office of Western European Affairs in Washington, DC. After rising to the post of director in 1957, Tyler became political counselor for the American embassy in Bonn, Germany, from 1958 to 1961. Returning to Washington, DC, he worked for the Secretary of State for European Affairs as deputy assistant and then assistant; he was then named U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands in 1965. Tyler served as ambassador there for four years; somewhat ironically, he never let it be known while he was in Holland that he was a descendant of the former Dutch king. After retiring from government work in 1969, Tyler directed the Dumbarton Oaks Research Center until 1977. Honored with a Medal of Freedom in 1945 and named to the Order of the Legion of Honor as a knight in 1946 and officer in 1979, Tyler was the author of The Sixth Nouvelle Nouvelle (1971) and Dijon and the Valois Dukes of Burgundy (1971); he also translated Pierre Jannsen's A Moment of Silence (1970).

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Washington Post, December 4, 2003, p. B6.