The Washington Post, August 3, 2007, Friday

Copyright 2007 The Washington Post

All Rights Reserved

The Washington Post

August 3, 2007 Friday

Correction Appended

Suburban Edition

SECTION: METRO; Pg. B07

DISTRIBUTION: Maryland

HEADLINE: Obituaries

BODY:

....

Oscar M. Mackour International Economist

Oscar M. Mackour, 72, an international economist for the Treasury Department, died of gastric carcinoma July 23 at his home in Scottsdale, Ariz. He was a Washington resident for more than 43 years.

Mr. Mackour was a special assistant to Paul A. Volcker during the international monetary crisis of 1972-73. He then headed the executive secretariat at the Treasury Department for secretaries George P. Shultz and William E. Simon.

For more than 20 years, Mr. Mackour was secretary of the U.S. delegation to the annual International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings, and he served as international desk officer for a number of industrial nations, including Australia, Austria, Germany, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

He was born in Berlin in 1935 and was sent to England in 1939 by the Kindertransport, a movement to spirit children out of the way of the Nazis near the outbreak of World War II. He immigrated to the United States in 1947, going first to Texas, then New York, and graduated from Cornell University's School of Labor Relations. He attended the London School of Economics in 1957 and 1958 before he was drafted into the Army. He served in New York City and, in his off-duty time, studied toward a master's degree, which he received from New York University in 1960.

After working for Ford Motor Co. in Michigan and W.R. Grace in New York, he joined the Treasury Department in 1964, working as an assistant attache in London before joining Treasury's Office of Industrial Nations as the United Kingdom desk officer. He retired about 1997.

He was active in his co-op at Van Ness North in Washington until moving recently to Arizona for medical care.

Survivors include his wife of 49 years, Fern E. Mackour of Washington.

-- Patricia Sullivan