Hughes, H. Stuart (Henry Stuart), 1916-1999

Henry Stuart Hughes was born in New York City on May 7, 1916, to Marjory Stuart and Charles Evans Hughes, Jr. His grandfather was former Secretary of State and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Charles Evans Hughes. H. Stuart Hughes attended Amherst College (B.A. 1937) and Harvard University (Ph.D., History 1940). During World War II, Hughes served in the Office of Strategic Services in many theaters of the war, including Algeria, France, Italy, England, and Germany, and ascended to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. After the war, he spent two years working for the State Department before returning to teach at Harvard. During his academic career, he taught European history at Harvard, Stanford, and the University of California at San Diego. Hughes specialized in intellectual history and published many books and articles. Hughes was also an ardent supporter of peace and an opponent of nuclear weapons. In 1962, he ran as an independent candidate for the United States Senate from Massachusetts on a platform emphasizing peace and nuclear disarmament. He also co-chaired and chaired the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE) from 1963 to 1970 and frequently gave speeches, wrote articles, and attended rallies opposing the war in Vietnam. Hughes retired from the faculty of the University of California at San Diego in 1986 and published his memoirs in 1990. He died on October 21, 1999.

Historian, educator.

Epithet: Professor of History Harvard University

Henry Stuart Hughes was born May 7, 1916 in New York City, the son of Charles Evans Hughes, Jr. and Marjory Stuart Hughes. His grandfather was Charles Evans Hughes, former Secretary of State and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. H. Stuart Hughes attended Amherst College (B.A. 1937) and Harvard University (Ph.D., History 1940). Before enlisting in the armed services, Hughes taught briefly at Brown University in 1940 1941.

In 1941, Hughes enlisted as a private in the Rhode Island National Guard. Later that year, he joined the Office of the Coordinator of Information within the Office of Strategic Services in Washington D.C. Hughes served in a variety of administrative and research capacities in the O.S.S. during the war, in a number of different venues, including Algeria, France, Italy, England and Germany. He was promoted several times, and was eventually elevated to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. With the end of the war in 1945, Hughes returned to Washington and took a position in the Department of State.

In 1947, Hughes left the Department of State and returned to Harvard to teach half time in the Department of History and to be associate director of the Russian Research Center. Hughes was denied tenure at Harvard in 1952. He taught at Stanford University from 1952 to 1956 when he returned to the Harvard history department as an Associate Professor. Hughes remained at Harvard until 1975, when both he and his second wife, Judith, accepted positions in the history department at the University of California at San Diego. Throughout his distinguished academic career, Hughes published many books and articles on European history, and was acknowledged as one of the foremost voices in the field of European intellectual history.

In 1962, Hughes ran for the United States Senate as an independent candidate from the state of Massachusetts. Although Hughes finished third in a race won by Edward Kennedy, his candidacy was one of the first to emphasize peace and nuclear disarmament at the center of a campaign platform. In 1963, he became co chairman, with Benjamin Spock, of the board of directors of the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, known more commonly as SANE. Hughes stayed on as chairman of SANE, after Spock stepped down from the position in 1967, until 1970. He also was an active and outspoken critic of the Vietnam war who published articles, gave speeches and attended protests in opposition to the conflict.

Hughes' leftist leanings resulted in his being suspected as a subversive on at least two occasions. In the early 1950s, he was forced to resign his military commission due to allegations that he was a communist sympathizer, although he was given an honorable discharge. In 1966, he was temporarily refused a visa to travel abroad by the State Department on charges he was a communist conspirator, which were later dropped.

Hughes married twice and had three children, Sandra and Kenneth with his first wife Suzanne, and David, with his second wife Judith. He retired from the University of California at San Diego in 1986. In 1990, he published his autobiography, Gentleman Rebel: The Memoirs of H. Stuart Hughes . Henry Stuart Hughes died October 21, 1999.