Hart, Parker T., 1910-1997

<p>A Foreign Service officer for 31 years, U.S. Ambassador Parker Thompson Hart was an expert on foreign policy in the Middle East. He was born September 28, 1910, in Medford, Massachusetts to William Parker and Ella Louisa (Thompson) Hart. Hart attended Dartmouth College, graduating in 1933, earned his master’s degree in diplomatic history from Harvard in 1935, and a year later received a diploma from L’Institut des Hautes Etudes Internationales in Geneva, Switzerland. Later in life, Hart studied at Georgetown University’s Foreign Service school and, in addition, completed a one-year course of study at the National War College in 1952.</p>

<p>In 1949, Hart married Jane Constance Smiley, granddaughter of Elmer Smiley, fourth president of the University of Wyoming. They had two daughters.</p>

<p>He began his diplomatic career in 1938 serving as vice consul in Austria then in Brazil. In 1944, he went to the Middle East and opened the first U.S. consulate in Saudi Arabia at Dhahran, site of newly discovered oil fields. In 1947 he worked for the State Department then returned to Dhahran as consul general in 1949. In 1952, he became the State Department’s Middle East director then moved quickly up the career ladder to deputy assistant secretary for the Middle East, ambassador to Saudi Arabia and then ambassador to Turkey from 1965 to 1968.</p>

<p>Next, Hart served as assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs and as director of the Foreign Service Institute. He retired from foreign service and became president of the Middle East Institute, a private foundation in Washington D.C., from 1969 until 1972. Then, for the next 18 years, he worked as a consultant and special representative for the Middle East and North Africa for the giant Bechtel Corporation.</p>

<p>Hart also did private consulting work for other large corporations such as RCA, General Motors and U.S. Steel, and published two books on the Middle East: Two NATO Allies at the Threshold of War: Cyprus, A Firsthand Account of Crisis Management, 1965-1968 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1990) and Saudi Arabia and the United States: Birth of a Security Partnership (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998).</p>

<p>Parker T. Hart died on October 15, 1997, at the age of 87.</p>

<p>Ambassador Parker Thompson Hart, who died Oct. 15 at age 87 at his home in Washington, DC, was one of the most admired and best-liked American professional diplomats of the past several decades. A Middle East expert, he combined an easily approachable personality—a "people person," some said—with a solid dedication to scholarship. For these reasons his peers—Foreign Service Arabists and others with Middle East experience—regarded him with a mixture of deep affection and great respect.</p>

<p>In Vienna, Austria after the 1938 Anschluss with Germany, young Vice Consul Hart witnessed at first hand the deep fear the incoming Nazi regime inspired among the city's large Jewish population. For the rest of his life he was particularly proud of his personal role in helping some of these gravely imperiled residents escape to the United States and to Palestine.</p>

<p>A PIONEERING ASSIGNMENT</p>
<p>After Vienna, Ambassador Hart, universally known as "Pete" by his legion of friends, served in Brazil. Then, in 1944, he opened the first American consulate in Saudi Arabia at Dhahran, site of the newly discovered oil fields that were to change the history of the Arabian peninsula—and the world.</p>

<p>In 1952 he became the State Department's Middle East director in Washington, DC where, in 1954, he helped this writer into hard-to-get Arabic language studies.</p>

<p>He moved rapidly up the career ladder to deputy assistant secretary for the Middle East, ambassador to Saudi Arabia and then ambassador to Turkey from 1965 to 1968.</p>

<p>Pete Hart earned a place in world history during his Ankara assignment for preventing war between Turkey and Greece, both of them members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, over sectarian strife in Cyprus.</p>

<p>Next, from 1968 to Feb. 1969, Ambassador Hart served as assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs, the highest position in that geographic bureau. He was the first Arabic-speaking foreign service officer to serve in that position. He was replaced when Richard Nixon became president and Henry Kissinger, as national security adviser, followed Israeli-leaning Middle East policies that, in the opinion of many area specialists, accelerated a downward slide for U.S. national interests in the area from which the nation has never recovered.</p>

<p>Ambassador Hart's final assignment before retiring from the Foreign Service was as director of the Foreign Service Institute, the State Department's "university," for several months in 1969.</p>

<p>For two years thereafter he served as president of the Middle East Institute, a private foundation, in Washington, DC. Then, for 18 years, from 1972 to 1990, he was a consultant with offices in Washington, DC for the Bechtel Corporation.</p>

<p>Ambassador Hart graduated from Dartmouth College in 1933 and earned a master's degree in diplomatic history from Harvard. He also earned a diploma from L'Institut des Hautes Etudes Internationales in Geneva, and in fact originally came into the Foreign Service as a French-language translator. Later he also completed a one-year course of study at the National War College.</p>

<p>Two NATO Allies at the Threshold of War, Ambassador Hart's book on the Cyprus crisis during his ambassadorship in Turkey, was published by Duke University Press in 1990. His second book, Saudi Arabia and the United States, will be published in 1998 by Indiana University Press.</p>

<p>Parker T. Hart, an American career diplomat who was prominent in Middle East matters in the 1960's, serving as Ambassador to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Turkey and Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, died on Oct. 15 at his home in Washington. He was 87.</p>

<p>Mr. Hart, who spoke Arabic and Turkish, was also Minister to Yemen in 1961 and 1962, and director of the Foreign Service Institute, the State Department's chief training school, in 1969 until his retirement from the State Department later that year.</p>

<p>As a diplomat, Mr. Hart could be a patient negotiator. While he was Ambassador to Turkey, from 1965 to 1968, he negotiated with Turkish officials for nine months until they agreed to phase out opium production in their country.</p>

<p>Mr. Hart was born in Medford, Mass., graduated from Dartmouth College, earned a master's degree in history from Harvard, studied in Switzerland and joined the State Department in 1937. He went on to hold consular and diplomatic posts in Vienna; Para, Brazil; Cairo and Jidda and Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.</p>

<p>In the 1950's, after other assignments in Washington, he was director of the State Department's Office of Near Eastern Affairs, Deputy Chief of Mission in Cairo, Consul General in Damascus and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near East and South Asia Affairs.</p>

<p>Mr. Hart was Ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1961 to 1965 and concurrently held two other posts: Minister to Yemen and, in 1962 and 1963, Ambassador to Kuwait. He was president of the Middle East Institute in Washington from 1969 to 1973 and a special representative of, and then a consultant to, Bechtel Corp. from 1973 to 1990.</p>

<p>Career Foreign Service Officer</p>
<p>State of Residence: Illinois</p>
<p>1. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary (Jordan)</p>
<p>Appointed: February 5, 1958</p>
<p>Took oath of office, but did not proceed to post, Jordan having united briefly with Iraq in the Arab Union.</p>
<p>2. Concurrent Appointments</p>
<p>a. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary (Saudi Arabia)</p>
<p>Appointed: April 6, 1961</p>
<p>Presentation of Credentials: July 22, 1961</p>
<p>Termination of Mission: Left post on May 29, 1965</p>
<p>Also accredited to Yemen and Kuwait; resident at Jeddah.</p>
<p>b. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary (Yemen)</p>
<p>Appointed: May 20, 1961</p>
<p>Presentation of Credentials: October 1, 1961</p>
<p>Termination of Mission: Appointment terminated September 27, 1962</p>
<p>Commissioned to the Kingdom of Yemen. Also accredited to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia; resident at Jeddah.</p>
<p>c. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary (Kuwait)</p>
<p>Appointed: December 14, 1961</p>
<p>Presentation of Credentials: January 7, 1962</p>
<p>Termination of Mission: Appointment terminated July 12, 1963</p>
<p>Commissioned during a recess of the Senate; recommissioned on January 30, 1962, after confirmation. Also accredited to Yemen and Saudi Arabia; resident at Jeddah.</p>
<p>3. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary (Turkey)</p>
<p>Appointed: July 22, 1965</p>
<p>Presentation of Credentials: October 11, 1965</p>
<p>Termination of Mission: Left post on October 3, 1968</p>
<p>4. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs</p>
<p>Appointed: October 4, 1968</p>
<p>Entry on Duty: October 14, 1968</p>
<p>Termination of Appointment: February 4, 1969</p>
<p>5. Director of the Foreign Service Institute</p>
<p>Appointed: February 5, 1969</p>
<p>Termination of Appointment: September 30, 1969</p>