| Sir Keith Waller | |
| Office1: | Secretary of the Department of External Affairs |
| Term Start1: | 6 April 1970 |
| Term End1: | 6 November 1970 |
| Office2: | Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs |
| Term Start2: | 6 November 1970 |
| Term End2: | 3 January 1974 |
| Office3: | 7th Ambassador of Australia to the United States |
| Term Start3: | 20 April 1964 |
| Term End3: | 1 June 1970 |
| Predecessor3: | Howard Beale |
| Successor3: | James Plimsoll |
| Birth Name: | John Keith Waller |
| Birth Date: | 19 February 1914 |
| Occupation: | Public servant |
| Nationality: |  Australian |
| Parents: | Arthur James Waller[1] |
| Alma Mater: | University of Melbourne |
Sir (John) Keith Waller (19 February 191414 November 1992) was a senior Australian public servant and diplomat.
Keith Waller was born in Melbourne in 1914.[2] He was educated at Scotch College[3] and Ormond College at the University of Melbourne.[2]
Waller joined the Commonwealth Public Service in 1936, in the Department of External Affairs.[2] In 1937 he was appointed Private Secretary to Billy Hughes, then Minister for External Affairs.
His career proved to be long and successful, establishing himself as a successful diplomat across a number of postings, including to Moscow, Washington and Bangkok.[2] In 1943 whilst senior officer to the Australian Legation at Chungking, Waller married Alison Dent in Bombay, India.[4]
Waller was Australian Consul-General in Manila from 1948 to 1950. During this time he dealt with the fall-out of the Lorenzo Gamboa case, which saw a Filipino man separated from his wife and children due to the White Australia policy. He received death threats, but later downplayed its significance and dismissed it as a "trivial case".[5]
He was appointed Secretary of the Department of External Affairs (later Department of Foreign Affairs in 1970), retiring from the public service in 1974 on his 60th birthday.[6] Soon after his retirement, Waller prepared a brief assessing the Australian Government security and intelligence apparatus as it existed in the mid-1970s.[7]
Waller died in Canberra on 14 November 1992 aged 78.[8] [9]
In June 1961, Waller was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire whilst Ambassador to the USSR. He was made a Knight Bachelor in 1968 during his time as Ambassador to the United States of America.
A street in the Canberra suburb of Casey was named Keith Waller Rise in 2011, in Waller's honour.