AUSTIN, Texas -- Former Texas secretary of state and ambassador to Australia Edward A. Clark has died of heart failure. He was 86.
Clark died Wednesday at St. David's Hospital.
He will be buried Friday in San Augustine, the small East Texas town where he was born in 1906.
Clark served as assistant Texas attorney general from 1932 to 1935 and then worked as an assistant to Gov. James Allred until 1937. He was appointed Texas secretary of state in 1937 at age 30.
In the late 1930s, Clark co-founded the Austin law firm of Looney & Clark, then served as a captain in the U.S. Army during World War II. The law firm later became known as Clark, Thomas, Winters & Newton.
In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson named Clark ambassador to Australia. George Christian, an Austin political consultant who served as Johnson's press secretary, said Clark became a well-known in Australia 'almost overnight.'
Former Sen. Ralph Yarborough said Clark 'was such a stunning success as ambassador to Australia that his name became synonymous with the word ambassador in Texas.'
Clark became an executive director of the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington in 1968 and was part of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency committees.
Clark is survived by a daughter, Leila Clark Wynn of Greenville, Miss., his sister, Kathleen Clark Fisher, four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
