DeWitt Clinton Poole was born in Vancouver, Washington, in 1885. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1906 and from George Washington University Diplomatic School in 1910. Thereafter he entered the American Foreign Service and held positions in Berlin, Paris, Moscow, and Archangel. In 1917 Poole was assigned to Moscow where he served as counsel officer. In January, 1918 he was sent to Rostov in order to establish an new consulate there to protect vital American interests. Later that year he was appointed counselor to Moscow and in 1919 promoted to chief in the Russian Division of the State Department. Poole served as an expert assistant to the American delegation during the Washington Arms Limitation Conference of 1921 and 1922. In 1927 he was appointed counselor of the embassy at Berlin.
Poole resigned from government service in 1930. Although offered a position as economic adviser to the State Department he chose instead to help establish the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, an institution created to better prepare individuals for the diplomatic service. Poole continued in this post for almost ten years, serving as lecturer and director. After his resignation in 1939 Poole returned to government service and worked as director of the Foreign Nationalities Branch of the Office of Strategic Services. In April 1945 he was appointed chairman of an advisory committee on training foreign service officers and associate public liaison of the U.S. Delegation to the United Nations Conference on International Organization at San Francisco. In July 1945 Poole was sent to Hoechst, Germany as special representative of the secretary of state and chief of the special mission for interrogation of German personnel. In the years following World War II he lectured at Harvard University, served in several organizations interested in European recovery, and published several articles. Poole died in 1952.
