William Alfred Eddy

William Eddy (kneeling) on ​​board the USS Quincy in conversation with King Ibn Saud; right President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1945)

William Alfred "Bill" Eddy (born March 9, 1896 in Sidon , † May 3, 1962 in Beirut ) was an American intelligence officer.

He served in the Marine Corps in the First and Second World War , was US ambassador in Saudi Arabia (1944-1946) and University professor and college president (1936 to 1942). With his personal friendship with the Saudi Arabian royal family, Eddy lays the foundation for the strategic partnership between Saudi Arabia and the USA.

Life

Eddy was born in Sidon, then part of Syria , now in Lebanon . His parents were Presbyterian missionaries. Eddy grew up bilingual. He spoke English at home and at school and learned Arabic from his classmates. He stayed in the Middle East through high school and then attended the College of Wooster in New York .

After graduating from Princeton University in 1917 and marrying Maria Garvin, Eddy joined the Marine Corps on June 6, 1917. He was one of the first marines in the European theaters of war and fought as an intelligence officer in the 6th Marine Regiment from June 1 to 3, 1918 in the Battle of Belleau Forest near Paris against the German troops. The battle is seen as one of the most important successes of the Allied forces of the Entente against the German spring offensive. Eddy was seriously wounded and brought back to the United States, where he was awarded the Navy Cross , the Distinguished Service Cross , two Silver Stars and two Purple Hearts for his bravery .

1920-1945

After the First World War, Eddy first taught at the Peekskill Military Academy in New York and received his doctorate in 1922 at Princeton University on the subject of " Gulliver's Travels ". In 1923 he was appointed professor of English literature at Dartmouth College in Hanover , NH, as chairman of the English seminary at the American University of Cairo . However, his wife and children found life in Egypt difficult, so he returned to the United States in 1928 and resumed teaching at Dartmouth College. In 1936 he was named President of Hobart College , New York State (1936–1942).

At the beginning of the Second World War he returned to the military as an intelligence officer with the rank of lieutenant colonel and was appointed naval attaché in Cairo. There he worked for the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). In December 1941 Eddy was transferred to Tangier / Morocco . There he played a key role in the success of the Allied Operation Torch , which led to the Allied invasion of Africa in 1942, led by General George S. Patton . In 1943 the US Marine Corps and the OSS agreed to send Eddy to the Embassy in Jedda , Saudi Arabia , as an employee of the State Department and "special advisor to the US envoy" .

US President Franklin D. Roosevelt was interested in deepening relations with Saudi Arabia in view of the oil production that began there in 1937 . Eddy first met King Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud in 1944 . This marked the beginning of a close friendship with the Saud family that would far outlast the king's death in 1953. On September 23, 1944, Eddy was promoted to envoy, a post he would hold until May 28, 1946. At the urging of Eddy, King Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud and President Roosevelt finally met on February 14, 1945 on board the USS Quincy on the Great Bitter Lake in the Suez Canal for a historic meeting. Colonel Eddy had been asked by King Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud to translate the conversation. After the end of his mission in Saudi Arabia, Eddy traveled to the Kingdom of Yemen in 1946 as head of a Special US Diplomatic Mission and signed a friendship and trade treaty between the United States and the Kingdom with Abdul Karim Mutahhar on May 4, 1946.

1946–1962

Returned to the United States in Washington, DC, he was transferred to the post of Special Assistant to the Secretary of State for Research and Intelligence on August 1, 1946 . There Eddy played a key role in the passing of the National Security Act of 1947 , which led to the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). When the US supported the establishment of the state of Israel against his advice , Eddy withdrew and went to Beirut. He worked there as a consultant for the Arabian American Oil Company ( Aramco ) during the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s .

Eddy, who had been married to Mary Emma Garvin since October 1917, died in the hospital at the American University of Beirut, which his father and friends of the family helped found. He was buried in an Arab-Christian cemetery in Sidon.

literature

• Thomas Lippman: Arabian Knight. Colonel Bill Eddy USMC and the Rise of American Power in the Middle East. Selwa Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-9701157-2-0 .

Web links

• Biography with photos