Keating briefly practiced law before becoming a judge of the New York Court of Appeals. He served until 1969, when he resigned to become U.S. Ambassador to India. He served as ambassador until 1972, when he resigned to campaign for the re-election of President Richard Nixon. In 1973, Nixon appointed Keating U.S. Ambassador to Israel, and Keating remained in this position until his death in 1975. Early life Keating was born in Lima, New York on May 18, 1900, the son of Louise (Barnard) Keating, a schoolteacher, and Thomas Mosgrove Keating, a grocer. He was tutored by his mother until age seven, when he began attending the Lima public schools as a sixth grader. He graduated from high school at age 13 and attended Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, from which he graduated in 1915 as the class valedictorian. He graduated from the University of Rochester in 1919, and was a member of the Delta Upsilon fraternity and Phi Beta Kappa. He taught Latin and Greek for a year at Rochester's East High School, then began attendance at Harvard Law School. He graduated in 1923, was admitted to the bar, and commenced practice in Rochester. Keating's early forays into politics and government included service as town attorney for the town of Brighton, where he resided while practicing law in Rochester. Military service During World War I, Keating served in the Student Army Training Corps (SATC) at the University of Rochester, where he attained the rank of sergeant. In April, 1942 Keating joined the Army for World War II and was commissioned as a major. He served initially as chief of the assignments branch in the international division of the Army Service Forces headquarters, and was promoted to lieutenant colonel in October, 1942. In 1943, Keating was assigned to India as head of the Army Service Forces international office that administered the Lend-Lease Program for the China Burma India Theater, part of the South East Asia Command commanded by Lord Louis Mountbatten. He was promoted to colonel in February 1944 and in July 1944 he made an assessment tour of the theater's front lines with General Albert Coady Wedemeyer, Mountbatten's chief of staff, which took him to sixteen countries, including Ceylon, Burma, Indochina, and Java. Keating later served as executive assistant to Mountbatten's U.S. deputy, Lieutenant General Raymond Albert Wheeler, and was the senior American officer at the South East Asia Command's rear