Smith, Earl E. T.

Biographical/Historical Note

Earl Edward Tailer Smith was born in Newport, R.I., on July 8, 1903. He graduated from Yale in 1926, having won acclaim as a polo player and the champion boxer of his class.

A member of the New York Stock Exchange for more than sixty years, Smith founded the brokerage firm Paige, Smith & Remick in 1929 and was senior partner until 1937. He later served as director of various corporations, including the New York Central Railroad, the New York Dock Corporation, Lionel Corporation, Sotheby's, and the United States Sugar Corporation.

Active in state and national politics, he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention four times and a member of the Republican Platform Committee in 1960 and 1980. He served as finance chairman of the Republican State Committee in Florida and a member of the Republican National Finance Committee from 1954 to 1956.

As the U.S. ambassador to Cuba from 1957 to 1959, Smith was an eyewitness to the collapse of the government of Cuban strongman Fulgencio Batista and the advent of communist leader Fidel Castro. Appointed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in June 1957, he arrived in Havana the following month. Shortly after his arrival, he found himself at the center of controversy. During a trip to the eastern city of Santiago, he witnessed the brutal dispersal of a group of antigovernment demonstrators by the police; when he remarked on the event during a subsequent press conference, he was sharply criticized by the Cuban government, who called for his immediate dismissal. He had, however, the unequivocal support of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and thus remained at his post until January 1959, when he submitted his letter of resignation following Castro's revolution. He subsequently lent his support to John F. Kennedy, a close friend, during the 1960 presidential campaign and sought to advise the newly elected president on options for overthrowing Castro. In the following years, Smith wrote and spoke often about Cuba, including in his memoir, The Fourth Floor: An Account of the Castro Communist Revolution (New York, 1962).

A resident of Palm Beach, Florida, for more than fifty years, he was mayor of the city from 1971 to 1977. At the time of his death, he was board chairman of the Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach and was honored in 1989 with the dedication of the Earl E. T. Smith Park. He died in 1991 at his home in Palm Beach.

Source: "Earl Smith, 87, Ambassador to Cuba in the 1950's" by Marvine Howe, New York Times, February 17, 1991. Accessed May 25, 2011

From the guide to the Earl E. T. Smith papers, 1941-1991, (Hoover Institution Archives)