Meyer, Armin Henry 1914-2006

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born January 19, 1914, in Fort Wayne, IN; died of Parkinson's disease, August 13, 2006, in Washington, DC. Diplomat, educator, and author. Meyer was a former U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, Iran, and Japan. He graduated with an A.A. from Lincoln College in 1933, a B.A. from Capital University in 1935, and an M.A. in 1941 from Ohio State University. His studies had been in mathematics, and Meyer was an assistant math professor and director of admissions and public relations for Capital University from 1935 to 1941. During World War II, he served in the Office of War Information, and afterwards was with the U.S. Information Agency. This led to his work in the U.S. Foreign Service, beginning in the 1940s, when he was assigned to Baghdad. Later assignments included posts in Washington, DC; Beirut, Lebanon; and Kabul, Afghanistan. Meyer was named deputy director of South Asian Affairs in 1957, and then of Near Asian Affairs the next year. From 1959 to 1960, he was director of Near Asian Affairs, and from 1960 to 1961 he was deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs. In 1961, Meyer gained his first ambassadorship, which was in Lebanon. During the late 1960s, he was ambassador to Iran. Although much of his experience was with the Middle East, Meyer's accomplishments in working with politically troublesome nations led to his next Foreign Service job as ambassador to Japan from 1969 to 1972. Although he did not enjoy working under the Nixon administration, which routinely kept him out of the loop as to the president's intentions, Meyer successfully worked on the sensitive transfer of the island of Okinawa back to Japanese control in 1972, and calmed irate Japanese leaders when President Nixon suddenly announced he would visit China. After serving as chair of a committee to combat terrorism for a year, Meyer left the Foreign Service. He returned to academia as a visiting professor at American University, and from 1975 to 1986 was adjunct professor of diplomacy at Georgetown University. Meyer was the author of Assignment Tokyo: An Ambassador's Journal (1974) and Quiet Diplomacy: From Cairo to Tokyo in the Twilight of Imperialism (2003), and he cowrote Education in Diplomacy (1987).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

BOOKS

Meyer, Armin Henry, Assignment Tokyo: An Ambassador's Journal, Bobbs-Merrill, 1974.

PERIODICALS

Los Angeles Times, September 13, 2006, p. B13.

New York Times, September 10, 2006, p. C15.

Washington Post, August 27, 2006, p. C9.