John A. Scali
American diplomat
Died when: 77 years 165 days (929 months)Star Sign: Taurus
John Alfred Scali (April 27, 1918 – October 9, 1995) was the United States Ambassador to the United Nations from 1973 to 1975.From 1961 he was also a long time correspondent for ABC News.
As a correspondent for ABC, Scali became an intermediary during the Cuban Missile Crisis and later a part of the Nixon Administration.
Scali gained fame after it became known in 1964 that in October 1962, a year after he joined ABC News, he had carried a critical message from KGB Colonel Aleksandr Fomin (the cover name for Alexander Feklisov) to U.S. officials.
He left ABC in 1971 to serve as a foreign affairs adviser to President Nixon, becoming U.S.Ambassador to the United Nations in 1973.
Scali re-joined ABC in 1975 where he worked until retiring in 1993.Scali was contacted by Soviet embassy official (and KGB Station Chief) Fomin about a proposed settlement to the crisis, and subsequently he acted as a contact between Fomin and the Executive Committee.
However, it was without government direction that Scali responded to new Soviet conditions with a warning that a U.S. invasion was only hours away, prompting the Soviets to settle the crisis quickly.
