A Factoid from the History of U.S. Involvement with UNESCO

Myrna Loy, the actress who won an Academy Award for her lifetime career achievement in films, became a member of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO in 1948, the first Hollywood celebrity to do so.

She was married from 1950 ro 1961 to Howland H. Sargeant, the only American to serve as Chairman of the General Conference of UNESCO (6th Session, 1951).

Time magazine reported at time of the General Conference:

A Republican charge that Cinemactress Myrna Loy and her new State Department husband Howland H. Sargeant had enjoyed a Paris honeymoon at government expense is just not so, declared Georgia's Democratic Congressman Prince Preston Jr. The bridegroom did indeed travel on government funds because he was on an official mission; the honeymoon was coincidental and he paid his wife's bills. Besides, Preston added, since conferences frequently started at 8 a.m. and lasted until 2 a.m., "Paris turned out to be a mighty poor place to spend a honeymoon."

Sargeant, a Rhodes Scholar, was a career diplomat who became Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs before leaving government to run Radio Liberation, which broadcast to the Soviet Union.