Syrian Diplomat Forced To Leave William Howard Taft's House

WASHINGTON -- While the intricacies of international diplomacy might be slow and boring, Tuesday's coordinated action by the State Department to expel Syria's top diplomat from the United States was anything but.

Following the May 25 massacre in the Syrian village of Houla, a number of nations, including the United States, expelled Syria's top-ranking diplomat stationed in their respective nations.

DCist's Martin Austermuhle, who once worked for the Venezuelan Embassy in D.C., details just how serious the expulsion is.

For history buffs, Syria's embassy in the Kalorama neighborhood, located at 23rd Street NW and Wyoming Avenue, holds special significance. It's where William Howard Taft, the one-time U.S. president who also served as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, used to live.

The home is around the corner from Donald Rumsfeld's former home on Kalorama Road, the French ambassador's residence and the Embassy of Monaco.

Taft died at the house in March 1930. A mounted military procession carried his body from the home to the Capitol rotunda, where it laid in state before a funeral service at All Soul's Unitarian Church at 16th and Harvard Street NW, where Taft was a communicant, according to "The Last Salute: Civil and Military Funeral, 1969-1969."

Taft previously lived at No. 5 Dupont Circle, a home that no longer exists.