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Armin Meyer Papers

 Collection
Identifier: GTM-061208

Scope and Contents note

The Armin Meyer Papers are divided into six series. The first contains materials from Meyer’s pre-Ambassadorial career. The second, third, and fourth series are devoted to Meyer’s service as Ambassador in Lebanon, Iran, and Japan, respectively. The fifth series pertains to Meyer’s post-Ambassadorial career. The final series contains all photographic materials from the collection.

The first series includes monthly summary reports from Meyer’s OWI offices in Cairo and Baghdad, as well as his personal diaries and correspondence from the period. The series contains little from Meyer’s years in Washington, DC, though there are some dispatches from his overseas postings in 1952-1957.

The bulk of the collection is comprised of embassy documents from each of Meyer’s ambassadorial postings. After retirement, Meyer requested copies of his communications under the Freedom of Information Act. Some of the documents are redacted heavily, some documents were not released, and some were released only years Meyer’s initial request. These documents are primarily telegrams, airmail, briefing papers, dispatches to Washington, daily schedules, press clippings, entertainment records, speeches, and correspondence. Correspondence files are broken into personal and general categories.

The fifth series is an eclectic collection of the various projects Meyer took part in after his retirement from the Foreign Service. Included are numerous student papers on various aspects of mid-east diplomacy from an editorial book project with John Kincannon, a collection of the many oral history projects Meyer was interviewed for, papers for an academic conference on the “Nixon Shocks,” some reports on various countries written by Meyer in his capacity as a consultant, and records from the Ferdowski Project between Georgetown University and Ferdowski University.

The photographic series is comprised of photographs from Meyer’s time as an Ambassador. As Ambassador, Meyer came into contact with many world leaders at diplomatic functions, all of which are well documented in the series. Large format pictures that are captioned are individually sleeved and placed in albums (boxes 34-39), while smaller pictures are arranged in rough chronological order in boxes (boxes 40-47). The series also includes a number of presentation albums from Meyer’s various ambassadorial postings, especially his years in Japan (boxes 48-54).

Dates

  • 1945 - 2005

Conditions Governing Access note

Most manuscripts collections at the Georgetown University Booth Family Center for Special Collections are open to researchers; however, restrictions may apply to some collections. Collections stored off site require a minimum of three days for retrieval. For use of all manuscripts collections, researchers are advised to contact the Booth Family Center for Special Collections in advance of any visit.

Biographical note

Armin H. Meyer was born on January 19, 1914 in Fort Wayne, Indiana. His father, Armin Paul Meyer, was a Lutheran minister, as was his grandfather. Meyer’s mother, Leona Buss Meyer, died when Meyer was just three years old, and upon father’s remarriage some nine years later, Meyer went to live with his father’s sisters in Lincoln, Illinois. Meyer lived there for eight years, and was deeply affected by the discipline his aunts imposed, their insistence on academic excellence, and by the Lincoln lore that permeated the town. There, he attended Lincoln Community High School and Lincoln Junior College. In 1933, Meyer transferred to Capital University, a Lutheran college in Columbus, Ohio. Despite working 56 hours a week washing dishes, Meyer was the valedictorian for his graduating class of 1935. He immediately entered Capital University’s Lutheran Theological Seminary, graduated in 1939, followed by a Master’s degree at Ohio State in mathematics in 1941. Throughout graduate school, Meyer worked at Capital University, focusing on student recruitment. He became assistant Admissions Director, then Dean of Men in 1941.

Even before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, World War II upset Meyer’s plans to pursue an academic career. Because of his hobby as amateur radio operator, in 1941 Meyer was invited to participate in the Douglas Aircraft project in Gura, Eritrea, in northeast Africa. There, Meyer worked as a radio technician on Douglas DC-3 aircraft, serving on the route from Gura to Cairo, Egypt. As operations in Eritrea wound down following the defeat of Rommel’s Afrika Korps, Meyer was recruited by the U.S. Office of War Information in Cairo, where his experience doing public outreach for Capital University served the OWI well. In late 1944, Meyer was sent as temporary substitute to the Baghdad OWI office. There, he served as Public Affairs Officer for the next four years. In 1947, while still in Baghdad, Meyer joined the Foreign Service under the expansion of the Service mandated in the War Manpower Act.

In 1948, Meyer moved back to Washington, D.C. to serve as Public Affairs Advisor in the Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs. Four years later, Meyer moved to Beirut, Lebanon, where he spent three years as as Chief of Political Section. In 1955, Meyer accepted a position as Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. Two years later, Meyer returned to Washington, D.C. as Deputy Director in the Office of Near Eastern Affairs and Office of South Asian Affairs. In 1959 he advanced to Director of Office of Near Eastern Affairs, and in 1961, to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Eastern and South Asian Affairs. Throughout, Meyer worked to alleviate Arab-Israeli tensions, and was especially concerned with Palestinian refugees and the improvement of the Jordan River valley.

In 1961, after considering offers to serve in Israel or India, Meyer returned to Lebanon as Ambassador. There, he supported the first peaceful presidential transition in Lebanon in 1964, as well as overseeing the American response to Cuban missile crisis, the collapse of Joseph Johnson’s refugee plan, and the halting of the Jordan River headwaters diversion project. He also hosted visits by Lyndon Johnson, Bobby Kennedy, and the US Sixth Fleet.

Meyer’s ambassadorial career continued in Iran, where Meyer was posted in 1965. His duties there often centered around problems within the international oil trade. Meyer oversaw the negotiation of a median line separating Iran oil concessions from Saudi Arabia, a dispute over island ownership with Bahrain, and also the creation of a modest program of military assistance the Shah. The latter program Meyer felt was necessary to retain American influence with the Shah. Meyer also felt the later significant expansion of the military aid program under Nixon proved disastrous, as it created too large an American presence in Iran and provided a visible target for religious extremists.

In 1969, Meyer was named Ambassador to Japan, a surprise given Meyer’s career-long focus on Middle East. Nevertheless, Meyer enjoyed considerable success in Japan. He oversaw negotiations to secure the automatic extension of US-Japan Security Treaty, despite significant domestic opposition in Japan. He also oversaw reversion of Okinawa to Japanese administration, an achievement recognized in 1982 when Meyer received the Order of the Rising Sun, First Class, Japan’s highest decoration. Throughout his time in Japan, Meyer worked to ease the “Nixon Shocks,” namely Nixon’s diplomatic breakthrough with China and sharp disagreements with Japan over the textile trade.

After leaving Japan, in 1972 Nixon named Meyer the Chairman of the Working Group of the Cabinet Committee to Combat Terrorism, a governmental response to the 1972 Munich Olympics attack. Meyer retired from the Foreign Service in 1974 to work as international business consultant. He spent fifteen years consulting for Ecology and Environment, Inc., where he served as Director of International Affairs. Meyer also returned to the academy, serving on the faculty of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University from 1975-1986. In addition to teaching, he served as the head of an exchange program between Georgetown and Ferdowski University in Mashhad, Iran, from 1975 until the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Meyer remained active in foreign policy circles, and served as President of the Washington Institute of Foreign Affairs from 1988-1998.

In retirement, Meyer authored two books, "Assignment: Tokyo—An Ambassador’s Journal" (1974) and "Quiet Diplomacy: From Cairo to Tokyo in the Twilight of Imperialism" (2003).

Armin H. Meyer died in Washington, D.C., on August 13, 2006. His immediate family included wife Alice James Meyer and daughter Kathleen White.

Extent

28.5 Linear Feet (56 boxes)

Language of Materials

English

Title
Armin Meyer Papers
Status
Completed
Author
Georgetown University Library Booth Family Center for Special Collections, Washington, D.C.
Date
12/2012
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin
Language of description note
English

Repository Details

Part of the Georgetown University Manuscripts Repository

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