Howard Smith (diplomat)

Sir Howard Frank Trayton Smith (born 15 October 1919 London, † 7 May 1996 ) was a British diplomat.

Life

Howard Frank Trayton Smith was the eldest son of a teacher in Wembley. With a state scholarship, he studied at the Regent Street Polytechnic in London, which he successfully completed a year before his grade. From 1938 he studied mathematics at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, a college of the University of Cambridge. From 1940 to 1945 he was in the military service of Bletchley Park employed. In 1946, he joined the Foreign Service in 1948 and was sent to the UN General Assembly in New York City. He was until 1956 in Norway, Washington, D.C. Caracas and worked. From 1956 was deputy head of the African Department at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

From 1961 to 1963 Frank Howard was Trayton Smith Counsellor in Moscow. In 1966 he was admitted to the Order of St Michael and St George, in which he was promoted to Grand Cross Knight Commander in 1976 and 1981. From 1968 to 1971 he was ambassador in Prague.

In the early 1970s reigned in Northern Ireland, Brian Faulkner with the Internment policy and the Bloody Sunday occurred (Northern Ireland 1972). Smith was at this time United Kingdom Government Representative in Northern Ireland. In this capacity, Smith took on January 13, 1972 in a session of the Joint Security Committee. At this meeting the Commander of Land Forces will have submitted a memorandum in Northern Ireland General Ford, in which he proposed the use of soldiers to arrests in moving assemblies. In the memorandum, Ford pointed out that while the shooting of ringleaders had to take into consideration. According to Smith, the direct government later took place was an option to be avoided by the British government at this time.

From 1972 to 1975, Smith Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and then to 1978, ambassador in Moscow. He then headed to 1981 the Security Service.

Private

He married in 1943 Mary Cropper († 1982), with whom he had a daughter. In 1983 he married Mary Penney († 1992).