Hugh Heyne Smythe (August 19, 1913 – June 22, 1977) was an American author, sociologist, diplomat and professor. He was an authority on African anthropology and East Asian studies. He served as the

United States Ambassador to Syria The United States ambassador to Syria is the official representative of the president of the United States to the president of Syria. From the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire in 1922 until 1944, had been under the control of France as a par ...

from 1965 to 1967 and

United States Ambassador to Malta This is a list of ambassadors of the United States to Malta. Initially a part of the British Empire, Malta was granted full independence as the State of Malta on September 21, 1964. The United States recognized the new nation and established ful ...

from 1967 to 1969. Smythe taught sociology and anthropology at the university level at multiple schools, both in the United States and abroad. From 1951 to 1953, he taught at the Yamaguchi National University as a Visiting Professor of Sociology and Anthropology. From 1962 to 1965, he taught sociology at

Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus. Being New York City's first publ ...

. At the same time, he worked as a

Fulbright Professor The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

at Chulalongkorn University. From 1961 to 1962, Smythe was a senior adviser in economic and social affairs to the US Mission to the United Nations. He also served a tour as the US senior advisor to the National Research Council in Thailand. Smythe was the tenth African-American U.S. ambassador and the first to a Middle Eastern country. His tenure coincided with the

Six-Day War The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states (primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, S ...

and the severing of diplomatic ties with the United States. He later became notorious for the "Smythe Telegram" that he wrote during the increasing tensions before the war, where he demanded that the U.S. return to a pro-Arab foreign policy and said that the U.S. should ignore previous promises to Israel that Egypt would not be allowed to ban Israeli ships from transiting the

Straits of Tiran The straits of Tiran ( ar, مضيق تيران ') are the narrow sea passages between the Sinai and Arabian peninsulas that connect the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea. The distance between the two peninsulas is about . The Multinational Force an ...

. He left the country on June 8, 1967.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smythe, Hugh H. 1913 births 1977 deaths Writers from Pittsburgh American sociologists African-American diplomats Virginia State University alumni Clark Atlanta University alumni Northwestern University alumni Ambassadors of the United States to Syria Ambassadors of the United States to Malta 20th-century African-American scientists African-American sociologists

See also

References