Gordon Etherington-Smith

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Raymond Gordon Anthony Etherington-Smith (born February 1, 1914 in Cairo , † April 14, 2007 ) was a British diplomat. He served as the British ambassador in South Vietnam (1963–1966) and in Sudan and as a minister to the Allied government for West Berlin .

Life and activity

Education and early career (1914–1945)

Etherington-Smith was the son of the British diplomat Thomas Basil Etherington-Smith († 1916) and an Austrian mother. After his father's death, he first grew up in Vienna. Later attended boarding Downside and studied at Magdalen College of Oxford University , where he earned degrees in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, and at the SOAS.

In 1936, Etherington-Smith, who spoke German, French and Russian, entered the British diplomatic service (acceptance as third-class secretary). After an assignment in the Foreign Office in London with an appointment date of September 14, 1936, he was assigned to the British Embassy in Berlin as an employee on February 19, 1939. However, he only stayed on his post in Berlin for a short time, as he was recalled as a diplomat by the Foreign Office after a violent clash with a Nazi functionary at the request of the German government, which declared him persona non grata .

After the outbreak of the Second World War, Etherington-Smith was assigned to the British diplomatic mission in Copenhagen (transfer on September 4, 1939). On April 13, 1940, he was reassigned to the Foreign Office, from where he was posted to the British Embassy in Washington, DC on September 22, 1940 . He worked there until 1942. During this time he was promoted to the rank of second secretary (Second Secretary) in the diplomatic service on October 14, 1941. After a brief transfer back to the Foreign Office (transfer date April 2, 1943), Etherington-Smith was assigned to the British delegation to General Chiang Kai-shek in Chungking in northwest China on July 7, 1943 , of which he was a member until 1945. Here he was promoted to 1st degree secretary in the diplomatic service on September 13, 1945.

On March 7, 1946, Etherginton-Smith was appointed British Consul General in the Chinese province of Kashgar. In 1947 he worked briefly in Moscow (1947) and in the Foreign Office.

Later career

On August 30, 1952, Etherington-Smith was transferred to Rome as a representative of the Foreign Office (Charge d'Affaires) at the Vatican . On October 8, 1954, he became the first secretary at the British Embassy in Saigon . Here he experienced the French withdrawal from Vietnam and the gradual drawing of the Americans into the crisis in the East Asian country that later culminated in the Vietnam War .

After a nearly three-year interlude in the Netherlands, where he was appointed British Counselor at the Embassy in The Hague on January 8, 1958, Etherington-Smith was appointed British Counselor in Singapore in March 1961 and soon afterwards became the Executive Commissioner General (Acting Commissioner-General).

On August 20, 1963, Etherington-Smith was appointed British Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary (Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary) to South Vietnam. He remained in this post for three years, during which the situation in Vietnam escalated. A fallen president of the state found refuge in Etherington-Smith's embassy building. Even if Great Britain did not take part in the Vietnam War with its own troops, it supported the American efforts in the country. Etherington-Smith organized the training of South Vietnamese police officers by British police officers.

In 1966, Etherington-Smith was appointed British Minister and Deputy City Commander in the Allied Military Government for West Berlin. In this position he was the highest ranking British civilian in the Allied High Command in the divided city. In his negotiations with the Soviets, his experience in Moscow during the Second World War and his knowledge of the Russian language came in handy.

In 1970 Etherington-Smith was appointed British ambassador to Sudan . He succeeded Robert Fowler . The country, which at that time - as it was again later - was deeply divided politically due to differences between the population groups in the north and south, was considered a hotspot at that time. On March 3, 1973, he narrowly escaped an attack by a terrorist squad of the Palestinian group Black September on a reception at the Saudi embassy, ​​at which several diplomats were taken hostage: Etherington-Smith had left the premises a few minutes before the group's attack began to drive to Kharthoum airport to meet a British diplomat. After the political demands of the hostage takers were not met, two American and one Belgian diplomats were shot. According to his obituary in The Times, Etherington-Smith would likely have been selected for the shootings had he fallen into the hands of the Palestinians.

Etherington-Smith later retired in 1973, which he spent in Wiltshire. In retirement he devoted himself to editing a publication by the Austrian officer Ernst Pinter on the attempts of Archduke Maximilian of Austria in the 1860s to build an empire of Mexico .

family

Etherington-Smith had been married to Mary Elisabeth Besly since 1950 and had three daughters and one son.

publication

As processor:

• Ernst Pitner: Maximilian's Lieutenant: A personal History of the Mexican Campaign, 1864-7 , 1993.

literature

• Peter Busch: All the Way with JFK ?: Britain, the US, and the Vietnam War , 2003.
• Foreign Office: The Foreign Office List and Diplomatic and Consular Year Book , 1963, p. 201.
• Obituary in Times May 30, 2007.