# Who is the greatest American diplomat of all time?

> Treaties, alliances and back-channel dinners: the people who talked America out of trouble.

*By YPB Team · Published August 11, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/who-is-the-greatest-american-diplomat-of-all-time*

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## Current results (0 votes)

1. **Benjamin Franklin**
   Talked France into an alliance in 1778 and signed the Treaty of Paris that ended the war.
2. **Henry Kissinger**
   Secretary of State who opened relations with China and negotiated the Vietnam withdrawal.
3. **George C. Marshall**
   Architect of the Marshall Plan that rebuilt post-war Europe, and a Nobel laureate.
4. **John Quincy Adams**
   Negotiated the Treaty of Ghent and drafted the Monroe Doctrine before becoming President.
5. **Ralph Bunche**
   Mediated the 1949 Arab-Israeli armistice and became the first Black Nobel Peace laureate.
6. **Dean Acheson**
   Secretary of State who built the NATO alliance and the post-war containment strategy.
7. **Madeleine Albright**
   First woman to serve as Secretary of State, and a driving force behind NATO's expansion.
8. **John Jay**
   Negotiated the treaty that kept the young republic out of a second war with Britain.
9. **Averell Harriman**
   Wartime ambassador to Moscow and London, and a fixture of American diplomacy for fifty years.
10. **Richard Holbrooke**
   Forced the Dayton Accords through and ended the war in Bosnia.
11. **Eleanor Roosevelt**
   Chaired the commission that produced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
12. **George F. Kennan**
   Diplomat and historian whose Long Telegram defined American strategy for forty years.
13. **Thomas Jefferson**
   Minister to France before Franklin's successor, and the first Secretary of State.
14. **Colin Powell**
   Career soldier who became the first Black Secretary of State.

Tags: usa, politics, diplomats