was someone with valuable language skills. He told a Senate committee that in 1954 his department had investigated 3885 hires for permanent positions and terminated only 3. During his years at the State Department he filled a number of special assignments. He chaired a meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration in February 1956 and headed the U.S. delegation to the same group in April 1957. Ireland During the backlash against McCarthyism in the late 1950s, several Washington figures called for McLeod to be fired. President Dwight Eisenhower appointed McLeod Ambassador to Ireland, which provoked resentment because it was considered an especially attractive posting normally used to reward an experienced career diplomat. The Senate approved his appointment after "angry debate". The New York Times opposed his nomination because "no one man has represented in the public mind more than Scott McLeod all the evils of McCarthyism as applied to diplomacy." It called him "a well-intentioned if woefully misguided young man". On April 11, 1957, he responded that "morale of the United States Foreign Service has never been as high as it is today" and cited increased applications for jobs at the State Department. Opinion in Ireland was divided. Dulles endorsed the nomination and reviewed McLeod's record when asked if he had ever considered firing him from his State Department post: The Senate confirmed his appointment on May 9 on a 60–20 vote, with only Democrats in opposition including then Senator John F. Kennedy. McLeod presented his credentials as ambassador on July 17, 1957, and served until March 15, 1961. President Kennedy accepted his resignation on February 6, 1961. Personal life McLeod wrote an introduction to Martin A. Bursten's Escape from Fear, a study of the refugee problem following the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. McLeod married Edna Van Pappelendam in 1939, and they had three children; the family lived in Bethesda, Maryland, and later in Sutton, New Hampshire. He died of a heart attack in Concord, New Hampshire, on November 7, 1961, at the age of 47. References External links 1914 births 1961 deaths United States Assistant Secretaries of State People from Davenport, Iowa Grinnell College alumni American civil servants Ambassadors of the United States to Ireland McCarthyism People from Bethesda, Maryland People from Sutton, New Hampshire Iowa Republicans Maryland Republicans New Hampshire Republicans