Kingdon Gould Jr.

Gould was the third child and the only son of Kingdon Gould, Sr., and his wife, Annunziata Lucci.[2] He attended Millbrook School in 1938[3] and graduated in 1942. He attended Yale University for two months in the spring of 1942[2] before serving in the United States Army in World War II and was the recipient of two Purple Hearts and two Silver Stars.[4] After returning from England in 1945,[3] he married Mary Bruce Thorne in 1946;[2] they had four sons, including Kingdon Gould III (born 1948), Frank, Thorne and Caleb, as well as five daughters, Lydia, Candida, Melissa, Annunziata and Thalia.[2][5] Gould returned to Yale to complete his undergraduate degree and then to study law, graduating in 1951.[3] He was the grandfather of United States Olympic cyclist Georgia Gould.[6]

Gould served as United States ambassador to Luxembourg from May 1969 to October 1972 during the Richard Nixon administration.[7] He later served as ambassador to the Netherlands from October 1973 to September 1976 under a second appointment by President Nixon, and continued serving through most of the Ford Administration.[8]

When President Nixon delivered his resignation speech in August 1974, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger was visiting with Gould in The Hague during his tenure as Ambassador to the Netherlands.[2] When discovering that Burger would swear in Gerald Ford to the presidency, Burger told Gould: "Do you understand the irony, Kingdon? That man [Nixon] appointed me to the highest office, and I wrote the opinion [that forced Nixon to turn over the Watergate tapes and papers as evidence in the trial of presidential aides accused of covering up the Watergate scandal".[2]

For many years Gould was business partner of Dominic F. Antonelli, Jr. in the Washington DC parking and real estate development PMI Parking Management Inc.[2] From 2013 until his death, he served as a trustee to the Baltimore Council on Foreign Affairs, a nonpartisan organization "dedicated to educating citizens about foreign affairs".[9] Gould's donations to Republican candidates and party organs attracted the attention of the media, as for instance in 2006 when the New York Times reported that he had donated $25,000 to the Republican National Committee.[10]

In addition to his business and political interests, he was known in the area as a donor to a range of educational institutions.[11] He also figured in the creation of the Capital Crescent Trail; having purchased the DC portion of the newly abandoned Georgetown branch from CSX in 1989, he sold the route to the National Park Service the following year.[12] In his retirement, Gould was known in the Baltimore-area as a donor to a range of educational institutions.[11] Gould died on January 16, 2018, at his home in North Laurel, Maryland of pneumonia at the age of 94, 13 days after his 94th birthday.[2]

• Appearances on C-SPAN