Jacob Myerson was US Foreign Service officer from 1950 to 1977, his tenure began with the administration of the Marshall Plan in West Berlin. After a brief time in Washington, he was transferred to Paris as member of the US Delegation to the COCOM. He returned to Washington in January 1957and became the first desk officer in the European Bureau of the State Department, in the Office for European Regional Affairs, which was responsible for organising US involvement in European and Atlantic regional organisations, NATO and the Council of Europe. He remained in this position until the summer of 1960, when he joined Walt Butterworth, the US Representative to the European Communities who created and headed a General Affairs section in this Mission. In the summer of 1965, he was taken on by George Ball as one of his assistants. In late 1966, he returned to the bureau of European Affairs as officer in the political affairs section of NATO. At the end of 1968, he returned to Brussels to become economic counsellor of the US mission to the Community. He remained there as minister-counsellor until the summer of 1975. At that point, he returned to New York to a United Nations assignment. From 1977 to 1980, he was at the US Embassy in Paris as economic minister. He was appointed OECD Deputy Secretary General in September 1980 a position he held until late 1998.