William Macomber, 82; Former Metropolitan Museum President
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William B. Macomber Jr., a former ambassador to Jordan and Turkey and former president of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, died Wednesday at his Nantucket, Mass., home of complications from Parkinson’s disease, the Washington Post reported Friday. He was 82.
Macomber worked in the State Department in the administrations of presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford.
He was also a founding member of the Washington-based American Academy of Diplomacy, a nonprofit group.
He was known in the foreign service community as a reformer and was one of a small group of top officials who refused Nixon’s demand to punish foreign service officers who protested against the Vietnam War.
Macomber, a native of Rochester, N.Y., retired from the government in 1977 and became president of the museum, where he focused on financial management and administration.
He retired to Nantucket from the Met in 1986. He continued to work, however, teaching social science and coaching football at the local high school.
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