Charles "Chip" Eustis Bohlen (August 30, 1904 – January 1, 1974) was an American diplomat, ambassador, and expert on the Soviet Union.

The second of three Bohlen children, Charles Eustis was raised in Aiken, South Carolina, and moved with his family at age 12 to Ipswich, Massachusetts.

He was therefore distantly related to Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, Germany's primary weapon-maker during World War II.

Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach was indicted for war crimes at the Nuremberg tribunal, but illness prevented his prosecution until his demise in 1950.

[3] On August 24, 1939, he received the full content of the secret Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, signed only a day earlier, from Hans von Herwarth.

[7] The secret protocol contained an understanding between Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin to divide Central Europe, the Baltic States, and Finland between Germany and the Soviet Union.

[citation needed] A week later, the plan was realized by the German and Soviet invasions of Poland, and World War II started.

He then worked on Soviet issues in the State Department during the war, accompanying Harry Hopkins on missions to Stalin in Moscow.

[10] Kennan proposed a strategy of containment of Soviet expansion, but Bohlen was more cautious and recommended accommodation by allowing Stalin to have a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe without it being disturbed by the US.

Bohlen, criticized by some of the hawks in the US Congress, paid close attention to public opinion as he considered domestic influence in a democracy to be inevitable.

Bohlen oversaw several key events during his time as ambassador to the Soviet Union, including the rise of Georgy Malenkov to the premiership, the arrest and execution of Lavrentiy Beria, the ascendency of Nikita Khrushchev, the Hungarian Revolution and the Suez Crisis.

According to the Kennedy advisor Theodore Sorensen, Bohlen participated in early discussions surrounding the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962.

During an ExComm meeting on October 18, 1962, Dean Rusk read a letter he wrote the previous night during deliberations in which he advocated for dealing with Khrushchev through firm diplomatic action, followed by a declaration of war if his response was unsatisfactory.

[3] His funeral services, at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C.,[3] on January 4, 1974, were followed by burial at Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia.