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R. Smith Simpson, Foreign Service officer
and author, dies at 103
By Adam Bernstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 9, 2010
R. Smith Simpson, 103, a retired Foreign Service officer and author who
was an early and forceful advocate of teaching diplomacy along with foreign
policy in preparation for an international affairs career, died Sept. 5 at a
retirement community in Charlottesville. The cause of death was not
reported.
Mr. Simpson served at U.S. Embassies in Brussels, Athens and Mexico City
in the 1940s and held consular assignments in India and Mozambique. He
retired in 1962 as the Foreign Service deputy examiner, a job that left him
deeply frustrated by what he considered the "abysmal ignorance" of many
applicants of subjects including American geography and culture.
In professional journals and in books such as "Anatomy of the State
Department" (1967), he continued to press for improvements in how
aspirants to a career in diplomacy were trained, assigned and promoted.
He advocated college-level programs in international affairs intended to
strengthen students' focus on the implementation of foreign policy instead of
the policy itself.
One of his most persuasive efforts on the subject was an issue he edited in
1968 of the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social
Science. Among the contributors was Peter F. Krogh, a State Department
official who became dean of Georgetown University's foreign service school
in 1970.
"People were always much more interested in international affairs writ large,
but diplomacy was a neglected field," Krogh said. "It wasn't sexy. Everyone
wants to talk about what we want to do in the world; not a lot want to talk
how to get it done."Krogh said he was persuaded by many of Mr. Simpson's
ideas and provided the institutional framework to try them out. The
collaboration led to the foreign service school's Institute for the Study of
Diplomacy.
Krogh called Mr. Simpson an "absolute pit bull" on making the intricacies of
diplomacy central to the new institute and said he was not shy about
complaining when he thought "we strayed a bit from the mold he had in
mind." Mr. Simpson taught night classes at Georgetown and moved to
Charlottesville from Annandale in 1992.
Robert Smith Simpson was born Nov. 9, 1906, in what is now Arlington
County. He was a 1923 graduate of Western High School in Washington
and a 1927 graduate of the University of Virginia, where he also received a
master's degree. He was a 1931 graduate of the Cornell University law
school and completed all but his dissertation for a doctorate in international
affairs at Columbia University.
After an early career with the National Recovery Administration, a New
Deal agency, Mr. Simpson joined the faculty at the University of
Pennsylvania's Wharton School. In 1944, he began working for the State
Department and participated in drafting the United Nations charter. He was
an international affairs adviser to the Labor Department in the late 1950s and
early 1960s.
His wife, Henriette Lanniée, whom he married in 1934, died in 2007.
Survivors include two daughters, Margaret Maurin Stunkard of Bryn Mawr,
Pa., and Zelia Broyles of Vinton, Va.; three granddaughters; and five
great-grandchildren.
and author, dies at 103
By Adam Bernstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 9, 2010
R. Smith Simpson, 103, a retired Foreign Service officer and author who
was an early and forceful advocate of teaching diplomacy along with foreign
policy in preparation for an international affairs career, died Sept. 5 at a
retirement community in Charlottesville. The cause of death was not
reported.
Mr. Simpson served at U.S. Embassies in Brussels, Athens and Mexico City
in the 1940s and held consular assignments in India and Mozambique. He
retired in 1962 as the Foreign Service deputy examiner, a job that left him
deeply frustrated by what he considered the "abysmal ignorance" of many
applicants of subjects including American geography and culture.
In professional journals and in books such as "Anatomy of the State
Department" (1967), he continued to press for improvements in how
aspirants to a career in diplomacy were trained, assigned and promoted.
He advocated college-level programs in international affairs intended to
strengthen students' focus on the implementation of foreign policy instead of
the policy itself.
One of his most persuasive efforts on the subject was an issue he edited in
1968 of the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social
Science. Among the contributors was Peter F. Krogh, a State Department
official who became dean of Georgetown University's foreign service school
in 1970.
"People were always much more interested in international affairs writ large,
but diplomacy was a neglected field," Krogh said. "It wasn't sexy. Everyone
wants to talk about what we want to do in the world; not a lot want to talk
how to get it done."Krogh said he was persuaded by many of Mr. Simpson's
ideas and provided the institutional framework to try them out. The
collaboration led to the foreign service school's Institute for the Study of
Diplomacy.
Krogh called Mr. Simpson an "absolute pit bull" on making the intricacies of
diplomacy central to the new institute and said he was not shy about
complaining when he thought "we strayed a bit from the mold he had in
mind." Mr. Simpson taught night classes at Georgetown and moved to
Charlottesville from Annandale in 1992.
Robert Smith Simpson was born Nov. 9, 1906, in what is now Arlington
County. He was a 1923 graduate of Western High School in Washington
and a 1927 graduate of the University of Virginia, where he also received a
master's degree. He was a 1931 graduate of the Cornell University law
school and completed all but his dissertation for a doctorate in international
affairs at Columbia University.
After an early career with the National Recovery Administration, a New
Deal agency, Mr. Simpson joined the faculty at the University of
Pennsylvania's Wharton School. In 1944, he began working for the State
Department and participated in drafting the United Nations charter. He was
an international affairs adviser to the Labor Department in the late 1950s and
early 1960s.
His wife, Henriette Lanniée, whom he married in 1934, died in 2007.
Survivors include two daughters, Margaret Maurin Stunkard of Bryn Mawr,
Pa., and Zelia Broyles of Vinton, Va.; three granddaughters; and five
great-grandchildren.