Edmund Aloysius Walsh

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Father Walsh with General Douglas MacArthur in Tokyo (1948)

Edmund Aloysius Walsh SJ (born October 10, 1885 in South Boston , Massachusetts , † October 31, 1956 ) was a professor of geopolitics and founder and first regent of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service , which he founded in 1919, six years before the United States Foreign Service itself existed.

Life

Walsh joined the Jesuits in 1902 and was ordained a priest on June 28, 1916. He graduated from Woodstock College , Maryland.

He headed the Papal Hunger Relief Committee mission to Russia in 1922, which was also successful in securing for the Vatican the relics of Andreas Bobola (they were actually transported to Rome by Walsh's assistant director, Louis J. Gallagher , who later wrote books on Walsh and Bobola wrote).

Walsh later worked on behalf of the Vatican to resolve long-standing church-state problems in Mexico in 1929. He later negotiated with the Iraqi government to establish an American college in Baghdad (in 1931).

After the Allied victory in World War II , Walsh served as an advisor to the US Chief of Counsel at the Nuremberg Trials . During this assignment, he interrogated the German geopolitician Karl Haushofer to determine whether he should be brought to justice for war crimes . In the end he decided that Major General Haushofer should not come to court.

Walsh was a staunch anti-communist ; it is said that he was the first to suggest that Senator Joseph McCarthy foment anti-communism in order to gain political importance. Walsh vigorously promoted anti-communist thought throughout his career.

legacy

President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent a letter to Georgetown University when Father Walsh died in 1956:

“Father Walsh's death is a grave loss to the society in which he served for so many years, the educational and religious life of the United States, and the free people of the Western world. For four decades he has been a vigorous and inspiring champion of freedom for mankind and independence for the peoples ... with every call to duty, all his energies have been put into the service of the United States by the guidance and wisdom of the Council.

Walsh's most obvious legacy is the school he founded, which became an incubator for the leadership of the United States and the world. Graduates from the school were US President Bill Clinton and CIA Director George Tenet , AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland and the Archbishop of New York , Cardinal John Joseph O'Connor . He has taught heads of state , including King Abdullah II of Jordan and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of the Philippines .

The school was also home to legendary faculty members including historians Carroll Quigley and Jules Davids , political scientist and World War II hero Jan Karski , and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ American National Biography anb.org
  2. ^ The Catholic Diplomat: Edmund A. Walsh, SJ
  3. ^ Biographical note on Louis J. Gallagher in the end: China in the Sixteenth Century: The Journals of Matteo Ricci (1942; reprint 1953) - English translation by Gallagher Matteo Riccis and Nicolas Trigault's De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas suscepta from Societate Jesu

literature
personal data
SURNAME Walsh, Edmund Aloysius
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Walsh, Edmund; Walsh, Edmund A.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American Jesuit, anti-communist, professor of geopolitics, founder and first regent of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service
DATE OF BIRTH October 10, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH South Boston , Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH October 31, 1956