Lithgow Osborne
Lithgow Osborne (1892 - 1980) was an American career diplomat. Lithgow Osborne was the third son of Thomas Mott Osborne. He was the United States ambassador to Norway from 1944 to 1946. Career When Lithgow Osborne was in the middle of his senior year at Harvard University in 1914, Joseph C. Grew snapped him up for an assignment in the United States Embassy in Berlin as a private secretary to Ambassador James W. Gerard. Lithgow Osborne was plunged into the diplomatic and social life of World War I wartime Germany. Osborne was transferred to the American Legation in Havana before President Wilson broke U.S. relations with Germany. Because of his familiarity with European affairs he was soon returned to the Continent as Secretary of the American Legation in Copenhagen. After the first World War Osborne returned to Washington, D.C. where he worked within the State Department for a few years. In 1922 he became the vice-president and editorial writer of the Auburn Citizen-Advertiser. In 1932 Osborne was back in government when Governor Herbert H. Lehman appointed him Commissioner of Conservation. After another ten years he departed Albany for Washington and a desk in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Ambassador