Tracing Syria and US Ambassadors from Decades Ago

I want to examine U.S.-Syria relations in the years between Syria independence and Hafiz Assad’s coup in 1971. I found myself thrilled about starting this book project when I found all the declassified CIA reports from the 1950s and 1960s. I became even more excited when I found that most of the American ambassadors to Syria from this period left papers and correspondence in archives around the United States. I thought that I would have access to all the primary documents I need for a book. Only now did I start thinking about potential interviewees.

Over the past two days I was in Washington, DC, checking the Library of Congress and the National Archives for any documents on Syria in the 1950s and 1960s. I knew that at least two ambassadors left their papers there.

I was able to find Richards Murphy’s papers at the Library of Congress. They included a box on his work as ambassador in Syria from 1974 to 1978. I found a very brief and neat diplomatic correspondence between Murphy and Hafiz Assad, the father of current Syrian President Bashar Assad. Disappointingly, it consisted mostly of good-bye and end-of-duty letters, which Murphy sent to almost all the presidents and kings of the Arab world. Murphy served as the United States Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs from 1983 to 1989 and that’s why he had the chance to establish diplomatic relations with Arab leaders.

In the letter to Assad, Murphy mentions the first time he met the iron-cold president in 1974. He says, “I had spent two and half years in the early sixties at our consulate in Aleppo and still today my Arabic, I am told, has a strong Aleppo accent.”

Murphy is the only ambassador still alive from that period, so he was at the top of my list of interviewees. I sent him an email, and we were set to meet.

I looked up Ridgway B. Knight, who was U.S. ambassador to Syria from 1961 to 1965. He died in 2001. He left an oral history interview at the Library of Congress, in which he talked briefly about his time in Syria. He describes his mission there as “difficult,” explaining that he had to deal with 14 governments during his tour of duty. Still, the interview ends with him saying, “My wife says, “If you were asked to go back to Syria tomorrow, you’d go like a shot.” And I think it’s so.”

In a story published by the New York Times, I found a reference to his grandson, Ridgway Brewster Knight who got married in 1987, so probably he is still alive. I was able to locate where they live in Santa Monica but I have not found their phone number or email yet.

I looked up Hugh H. Smythe, who succeeded Knight in 1965 but he died in 1977 at the age of 63. His wife, Mabel Smythe, died in 2006. They left a daughter, Karen Pamela Smythe, who lives in Texas. She is 67 now, and I finally found her phone number but haven’t reached her yet.

I also tried to find ambassadors from the other side, the Syrian one. I knew that in those years, Syria had two ambassadors in the United States, Sabah Qabbani and Omar Abu Risha. They are both dead but I was able to trace their families. With a help of a friend in Syria, I found the email of Rana Qabbani, Sabah’s daughter who now lives in France. I sent her an email but haven’t heard back yet. Abu Risha was a Syrian poet aside from being an ambassador. I found his nephew Sami Al-Kheyami’s Facebook page, and sent him a Facebook message. He has not yet opened my message, though he is active on Facebook and I left a comment on his wall as well.

I know that the son of Adib al-Shishakli, Syria’s president from 1953 to 1954, Samir al-Shishakli, is still alive, and that for a time he worked as senior advisor for the U.N. in Russia. He actually lives in New York. I found his nephew who gave me his email. I sent him an email along with a Facebook message. I haven’t heard back yet from him, either.

I started to feel frustrated after a weekend of tracking down people’s contacts and families via Legacy.com, the obituary website. The New York Times archive offers at least some leads regarding those ambassadors’ lives and families but the next step of finding their sons and daughters contacts is not easy at all.

I was going to give up until I remembered that I could find the families of Syria’s foreign ministers at that time. During the 24 years I’m writing about, we had 32 different foreign ministers in Syria. More than a new one every year. Since Hafiz Assad took power in 1970, we’ve had only three.

Ibrahim Makhous was the foreign minister between 1966 until 1968. He died in 2013 but his son Monzer Makhous is still alive at the age 71. He lives in Paris now and he is an active politician in the Syrian Opposition Coalition. I finally found his contact through a friend who works at France 24 and called him. We spoke for 10 minutes.

However, I got nothing from him about his father’s work. He said that he was still in high school when his father was foreign minister, and he doesn’t remember much about his life then, certainly not about Syria’s foreign relations with the US. I asked whether his father left a diary. Monzer said that he hadn’t, although he always told his son that should have kept a diary.

Makhous the son has been out of Syria for 40 years. He has vivid memories of Syria’s foreign relations during the period that he has been an emigre. He offered to give me information about Syria’s international affairs in late 1970s and 1980s — very exciting but not directly relevant to my research. We finally agreed that I would do an oral history interview with him about his work in the Syrian opposition. He said that this would have to wait a few weeks, though. He had just come from Geneva, where the Syrian opposition is trying negotiate a peace deal with Assad the son. He doesn’t have time or energy for a historical interview right now, he said.

So, after a whole week of looking for contacts for my book, I haven’t yet found anything. I am still waiting to meet Murphy, or to hear back from Qabbani’s daughter or Al Shishalkli’s son.

I remain optimistic and thank God that we have technology that enables us to stalk people and find primary information. But most of the Syria’s foreign ministers from the1960s were exiled when Assad came into power. Today, after six years of war in Syria,our population is shattered and only Facebook can tie us together in one network. I am very grateful to Mark Zuckerberg — even if his site hasn’t yielded much yet.