This is a list of ambassadors from the United States to Canada. The ambassador is the head of the Embassy of the United States in Ottawa.
Prior to 1943, the head of the U.S. diplomatic mission to Canada bore the title of Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary. The U.S. mission to Canada was upgraded from legation to embassy status in June 1943, and Ray Atherton was the first chief of mission to hold ambassadorial rank.
| # | Ambassador | Picture | Took office | Left office | President(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | William Phillips | June 1, 1927 | December 14, 1929 | Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover |
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| 2 | Hanford MacNider | August 29, 1930 | August 15, 1932 | Herbert Hoover | |
| 3 | Warren Delano Robbins | May 16, 1933 | March 28, 1935 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | |
| 4 | Norman Armour | August 7, 1935 | January 15, 1939 | ||
| 5 | Daniel Calhoun Roper | May 19, 1939 | August 20, 1939 | ||
| 6 | James H. R. Cromwell | January 24, 1940 | May 16, 1940 | ||
| 7 | Jay Pierrepont Moffat | June 13, 1940 | January 24, 1943 | ||
| 8 | Ray Atherton | August 3, 1943 | August 30, 1948 | Franklin D. Roosevelt Harry S Truman |
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| 9 | Laurence Steinhardt | November 1, 1949 | March 28, 1950 | Harry S Truman | |
| 10 | Stanley Woodward | June 22, 1950 | January 14, 1953 | ||
| 11 | R. Douglas Stuart | July 15, 1953 | May 4, 1956 | Dwight D. Eisenhower | |
| 12 | Livingston T. Merchant | May 23, 1956 | November 6, 1958 | ||
| 13 | Richard B. Wigglesworth | December 15, 1958 | October 19, 1960 | ||
| 14 | Livingston T. Merchant | March 15, 1961 | May 26, 1962 | John F. Kennedy | |
| 15 | William Walton Butterworth | December 11, 1962 | September 10, 1968 | John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson |
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| 16 | Harold F. Linder | September 10, 1968 | July 9, 1969 | Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon |
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| 17 | Adolph W. Schmidt | September 11, 1969 | January 29, 1974 | Richard M. Nixon | |
| 18 | William J. Porter | March 13, 1974 | December 16, 1975 | Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford |
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| 19 | Thomas O. Enders | February 17, 1976 | December 14, 1979 | Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter |
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| 20 | Kenneth M. Curtis | October 5, 1979 | January 20, 1981 | Jimmy Carter | |
| 21 | Paul H. Robinson, Jr. | July 15, 1981 | September 9, 1985 | Ronald Reagan | |
| 22 | Thomas M. T. Niles | September 10, 1985 | June 28, 1989 | Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush |
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| 23 | Edward N. Ney | June 30, 1989 | June 20, 1992 | George H. W. Bush | |
| 24 | Peter Teeley | July 3, 1992 | February 28, 1993 | George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton |
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| 25 | James Blanchard | August 19, 1993 | March 15, 1996 | Bill Clinton | |
| 26 | Gordon Giffin | September 17, 1997 | April 10, 2001 | Bill Clinton, George W. Bush |
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| 27 | Paul Cellucci | April 17, 2001 | March 18, 2005 | George W. Bush | |
| 28 | David Wilkins | June 29, 2005 | January 20, 2009 | George W. Bush | |
| 29 | David Jacobson | October 2, 2009 | Barack Obama |
Famous quotes containing the words united states, united, states, ambassador and/or canada:
“An alliance is like a chain. It is not made stronger by adding weak links to it. A great power like the United States gains no advantage and it loses prestige by offering, indeed peddling, its alliances to all and sundry. An alliance should be hard diplomatic currency, valuable and hard to get, and not inflationary paper from the mimeograph machine in the State Department.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“God knows that any man who would seek the presidency of the United States is a fool for his pains. The burden is all but intolerable, and the things that I have to do are just as much as the human spirit can carry.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“The genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges, or churches, or parlors, nor even in its newspapers or inventors, but always most in the common people.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final Note stating that, unless we heard from them by 11 o’clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.”
—Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940)
“What makes the United States government, on the whole, more tolerable—I mean for us lucky white men—is the fact that there is so much less of government with us.... But in Canada you are reminded of the government every day. It parades itself before you. It is not content to be the servant, but will be the master; and every day it goes out to the Plains of Abraham or to the Champs de Mars and exhibits itself and toots.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)