HARRIET SCOTT

1925 - 2021

HARRIET FAST SCOTT (Age 96)  
Of McLean, Virginia, died April 3, 2021 in home hospice. She was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, to Byron Macaulay Fast and Frances Cleveland Shacklett. She attended Wilson College for three years, quitting in 1943 to marry William F. Scott, who became a Colonel in the USAF. She was learning Russian when her husband told her that in 1962 they would be stationed at the American Embassy in Moscow, USSR. She became a translator of Soviet military publications and an expert in the field. She was the first woman to serve on a special board of the Hoover Institution, the first woman to attend JCS Strategic War Games, and the only woman to serve ten years as a Presidential Appointee to the General Advisory Committee on Arms Control and Disarmament. She was a consultant to government research agencies, a lecturer at universities, and in 2001 received an Award for Excellence from The Joint Military Intelligence College. She and her husband amassed the largest private library of Soviet military books in the US, and donated it to the University of Kentucky. Their writings include several books and over thirty years of reports on the Soviet and Russian military. She was preceded in death by her parents, her sister, brother, and her husband. She is survived by two daughters, two sons, six grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren. A memorial service will be held at a later date in Brandenburg, KY with interment in the family plot. Condolences may be left online at: www.bjsfunerals.com.