Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

The collection is without restrictions.

Use Restrictions

See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.

Preferred Citation

Parker T. Hart Papers, 1932-1998, Accession #11477, Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

This collection was given to the University of Virginia Library by Mrs. Parker T. Hart, Washington, D.C., on February 23, 1999.

Biographical/Historical Information

Parker T. Hart was born in Medford, Massachusetts, and graduated from Dartmouth College (1933), received a master's degree from Harvard in 1935, and studied at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva. In 1952 he also graduated form the National War College. In 1949, Hart married Jane Constance Smiley, of Washington, and they had two daughters, Margaret Hart Espey and Judith Hart Halsema.

Hart served in the State Department's Foreign Service for thirty-one years, entering government service in 1937 as a translator of French with the Department of State and being commissioned in the Foreign Service the following year. His first foreign posting took him to Vienna, where he witnessed the Nazi annexation of Austria and helped Jews fleeing to the United States and Palestine. During World War II, Hart served in Brazil where he investigated possible Nazi operations.

In 1944, his career turned towards the Middle East when he opened the first United States consulate in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, serving as consul general from 1949-1951. Other positions related to the Middle East include: Consul, Dhahran (1945-1946); Service in the Division of Foreign Service Planning, Department of State (1947-1949); Director of the Office of Near Eastern Affairs (1952-1953); Deputy Chief of Mission, Cairo (1955-1958); Minister to Syria during the first months of the United Arab Republic (1958); Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs (1958-1961); Ambassador to Saudi Arabia (1961-1965), and concurrently Minister to Yemen (1961-1962) and Ambassador to Kuwait (1962-1963); Ambassador to Turkey (1965- 1968); and Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs (1968- 1969).

From 1969 until 1973, he was president of the Middle East Institute. From 1972 until 1990, Hart worked as a consultant with Bechtel Corportation. He is also the author of two books, Two NATO Allies at the Threshold of War (1990) and Saudi Arabia and the United States Birth of a Security Partnership (1998). For more biographical information, please see the biographical folder in Box 2.

Scope and Content Information

The Parker T. Hart collection consists of papers generated by his diplomatic assignments to Turkey, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.

The papers contain personal and business correspondence, manuscripts, research papers, magazines, newspapers, newsletters, clippings, a scrapbook, itineraries, information concerning oil companies in the area, maps, interviews including oral history interview for the John F. Kennedy Library, and photographs.

Correspondence discusses Hart's career; Thomas C. Barger; Saudi Arabia, King Ibn Saud, and King Faisal; Palestine and Saudi Arabian security; Hart's book "Saudi Arabia and the United States," an ARAMCO reunion; and the history of the American embassy in Kuwait.

Topics found in various publications, papers and reports include the 1945 Suez meeting between Roosevelt and ibn Saud; the Jordan crisis and Dhahran negotiations of 1957-58; Saudi Arabia; Kuwait; Syria; Turkey; Yemen; and the Gulf War.

In addition the collection contains the manuscript of Thomas C. Barger's "Out in the Blue-Letters from Arabia 1937-1940," and several reprints or copies of articles on the Middle East including Leonard Binder's "Transformations in the Middle Eastern subordinate system after 1967," Kay Hardy Campbell's History of the United States Consulate General Dhahran, Saudi Arabia," Sister Ann C. Coffey's (moderator) "Changing patterns of power in the Persian Gulf," Hart's "Reflections on Saudi Arabia," "U.S. policy in the Middle East," "Kuwait and the Saudi Security System," Chapter 8 of "Saudi Arabia and the United States," and "The view from Riyadh," as well as his electronic dialogue "Fifty years of Saudi Arabian-American cooperation."

Also Harry N. Howard's "Entry of Turkey into World War II," Kemal H. Karpat's Ideology in Turkey after the Revolution of 1960," John S. Keating's "Mission to Mecca (re a meeting between ibn Saud and F.D.R.)," Nasri Khattar's Litteracy for the millions," Douglas Little's "From even-handed to empty-handed : JFK, Nasser and the Middle East, 1961-1963," Christopher McMullan's "Resolution of the Yemen Crisis, 1963," Joyce L. Miller's Syrian revolt of 1925," Itamar Rabinowitz's "Syria's quest for a regional role," George Rentz's "Early years of the Saudi state, "Roger R. Trask's "Joseph C. Grew and Turco-American Rapprochement 1927- 1932," and Brooks Wrampelmeier's "Saudi hegemony in the Arabian peninsula."