Karl L. Rankin

Karl Lott Rankin (September 4, 1898 – January 15, 1991) was an American diplomat from Wisconsin.

[2] He would serve in the United States Navy during World War I and attended college at the California Institute of Technology, the Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zurich, Switzerland; and Princeton University.

Later, he would serve as Commercial Attache in Prague from 1929 to 1932, in Athens, Greece and Tirana, Albania from 1932 to 1939, in Brussels, Belgium and Luxembourg from 1939 to 1940, in Belgrade, Serbia and Yugoslavia from 1940 to 1941, and in Cairo, Egypt in 1944.

Rankin was appointed U.S. Chargé d'Affaires to the Republic of China, based in Taipei, from 1950 to 1953, before being named Ambassador from 1953 to 1957.

After his retirement from the diplomatic corps, they made his home in South Bridgton, Maine.