nominated Taft to be Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration, and she subsequently held this office from November 10, 1997, to January 19, 2001. From 2001 to 2004, she was director of the United Nations Development Programme's Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery, in which capacity she oversaw the United Nations response to displaced persons related to the War in Afghanistan. Personal life Her first marriage, to Fred Malone, ended in divorce. She then married lawyer William Howard Taft IV, great-grandson of U.S. President William H. Taft, in 1974. Together, the couple had: William Howard Taft V Maria Taft Julia Taft Taft died of colon cancer at her Washington, D.C. home. References External links 1942 births 2008 deaths Taft family United States Assistant Secretaries of State Deaths from colorectal cancer American humanitarians Women humanitarians Deaths from cancer in Washington, D.C. 20th-century American politicians Activists from New York City