Mosbacher was born in
White Plains, New York. He was the brother of
Robert Mosbacher Sr., also a champion yachtsman, and
U.S. Secretary of Commerce during the administration of President
George Herbert Walker Bush. He was the son of Gertrude (née Schwartz) and Emil Mosbacher Sr., a wealthy stock trader who divested himself of his holdings just before the
Wall Street Crash of 1929 and who, as a member of the
Knickerbocker Yacht Club, helped formulate specifications for the Interclub class of racing sloops. His family was of German Jewish descent. "Bus" Mosbacher graduated from
The Choate School (now Choate Rosemary Hall) in 1939 and from
Dartmouth College in 1943. During World War II, Mosbacher served on a Navy minesweeper in the Pacific. In the 1940s and 1950s he oversaw his family's oil, natural gas and real estate business. Mosbacher is best known for his yacht racing. In 1962, even before his two
America's Cup victories, he was described by
Sports Illustrated as "the finest helmsman of our time." As a schoolboy sailor he had been Junior Champion of Long Island Sound sailing an
Atlantic, and at Dartmouth he led the sailing team to two Intercollegiate Championships (the McMillan Cup 1941 & 42). During the 1950s he won eight consecutive Long Island Sound season championships in the International One-Design Class, and in 1959 he was Southern Ocean Racing Conference (SORC) champion. In 1958 he and Warner Wilcox founded the Mamaroneck Frostbite Association, for racing 9' Dyer Dhows in winter, in response to discrimination by some of the yacht clubs against having Jewish members. Mosbacher successfully defended the America's Cup in 1962 at
Newport, Rhode Island in the sloop
Weatherly, and again in 1967 in the
12-metre class yacht
Intrepid. Mosbacher was appointed
Chief of Protocol of the United States shortly before President Nixon's inauguration in 1969 and served until 1972. He was founding chairman of
Operation Sail, which brought hundreds of
tall ships to New York during the
United States Bicentennial in 1976. He was also an organizer of Operation Sail events in 1986, marking the centennial of the
Statue of Liberty, and 1992, marking the cinquecentennial of
Columbus's voyage. His numerous other offices included Commodore of the
New York Yacht Club, chairman of the
Hoover Institution at
Stanford University, and directorships of
Chemical Bank,
Chubb,
Abercrombie & Fitch, and other companies. Mosbacher died in
Greenwich, Connecticut. == Awards ==