Henry Heyward Isham (4 November 1926 – 18 June 2009), was an American diplomat, Foreign Service Officer and editor. He was the negotiator who played an important role in the talks with North Vietnam that led to the Peace accord of 1973.Martin Weil, "Deft peace negotiator whose other side did not spare the rod" ''The Age'' (16 July 2009): 19.

Biography

Heyward Isham was born in New York City on 4 November 1926. His father Ralph Heyward Isham, a noted retired British Army officer and collector of rare books. He graduated from

Phillips Academy ("Not for Self") la, Finis Origine Pendet ("The End Depends Upon the Beginning") Youth From Every Quarter Knowledge and Goodness , address = 180 Main Street , city = Andover , state = Ma ...

. Isham studied International Relations at Yale University, graduating in 1947 before being posted to the American Embassy in Berlin during the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

. From 1955 through 1957, he was chief of the consular section and political office at the United States Embassy in Moscow. From 1974 to 1977, after a posting in Hong Kong, Isham was the American ambassador to

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...

. After his retirement from the diplomatic service he worked as an editor with Doubleday publishers. During this period he supervised the publication of the memoirs of

Andrei A. Gromyko Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko (russian: Андрей Андреевич Громыко; be, Андрэй Андрэевіч Грамыка; – 2 July 1989) was a Soviet communist politician and diplomat during the Cold War. He served as ...

, the Soviet foreign minister from 1957 to 1985, and other books by Russians.

Personal life

He was married to the artist Sheila (née Eaton) with whom he had three children. Son Christopher Isham was named Vice President and Washington Bureau Chief for CBS News in July 2007. Son Ralph Heyward Isham is the founder and managing director of GH Venture Partners LLC and is a former Fellow with the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee during the SALT II treaty hearings, who served on the staffs of Congressman

James W. Symington James Wadsworth Symington (; born September 28, 1927) is an American lawyer and politician who represented Missouri from 1969 to 1977 as a four-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Prior to that, in the late 1960s, he served as Chief ...

and Senator Edward Brooke, and is married to designer and artist Ala von Auersperg, daughter of Sunny von Bülow and co-founder of the National Center for Victims of Crime. Daughter Sandra Isham Vreeland was a poet and the director of an AIDS poetry project for youth; she died in 1996.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Isham, Heyward Ambassadors of the United States to Haiti Yale University alumni 1926 births 2009 deaths Phillips Academy alumni United States Foreign Service personnel 20th-century American diplomats