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During an important thirty-year diplomatic career
that spanned the administrations of Presidents Kennedy,
Johnson
and Nixon, Armin H. Meyer (1914-2006) served as ambassador
to Lebanon (1961-1965), to the Shah’s Iran (1965-1969),
and finally to Japan (1969-1972). He also served in Afghanistan
and Iraq, and as deputy assistant secretary of state for
Near Eastern and South Asian affairs. While in Japan he
helped secure the “automatic extension” of
the United States-Japan Security Treaty, preserving the
agreement as a cornerstone for the relationship between
the two countries. He also calmed Japan in the “shock” over
President Nixon’s China policy, and presided over
negotiations that led to Okinawa’s reversion to Japanese
administration. For this latter accomplishment he was awarded
the Order of the Rising Sun, First Class, by the Japanese
government. In addition, he served as the State Department’s
first coordinator for combating terrorism. |
Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his wife with Armin
H. Meyer in Tehran, October 30, 1967, after a performance
by the L.A. Philharmonic Orchestra. |
His remarkable archives, a significant addition to the Library’s
diplomatic holdings in Special Collections, come as a generous
gift from his daughter, Kathleen White, who has also donated
Ambassador Meyer’s extensive library. The papers cover
Meyer’s career from 1947 to 1966, and include a number
of lengthy letters (consisting too of his carbon copy replies),
from friends and colleagues, American and foreign. Hundreds
of identified photographs are present, which document nearly
all his activities in his postings abroad. Among the correspondents
are American diplomats Chester B. Bowles, William A. Eddy,
Raymond A. Hare, Parker T. Hart, Donald R. Heath, Loy W. Henderson,
Stuart W. Rockwell and Dean Rusk; among American politicians
are Robert F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon;
writers and correspondents include photojournalist David Douglas
Duncan, historian and novelist Harold Lamb, journalist Andre
Visson, and diplomatic correspondent Edward Weintal. The collection
is of chief importance for the study of the Middle East, especially
Lebanon during its first peaceful presidential transition.
It also illuminates the practice of quiet diplomacy, at which
Ambassador Meyer was extremely adept, and about which he wrote
in Quiet Diplomacy: From Cairo to Tokyo in the Twilight
of Imperialism (2003).
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