Hume Horan

Hume Alexander Horan (August 13, 1934 – July 22, 2004) was an American diplomat and ambassador to five countries,^[1] who has been described as "perhaps the most accomplished Arabic linguist to serve in the U.S. Foreign Service."^[2]

Horan was born to Margaret Robinson Hume and Abdullah Entezam in 1934 in Washington, D.C. His mother came from a well-to-do family; her grandfather served as a diplomat in President Abraham Lincoln's administration, her own father had been the mayor of Georgetown, and Stephen Vincent Benét was a cousin.^[3] Entezam was an Iranian diplomat. Horan's parents divorced just three years after his birth (though they had been married for over a decade), and Margaret Hume subsequently married a newspaperman named Harold Horan.^[1] The family then moved to Argentina.^[3] Entezam went on to become the Iranian Foreign Minister and head of National Iranian Oil Company before dying in 1985.^[3]

Horan was sent by his parents to a boarding school in Rhode Island named Portsmouth Priory, and as an adolescent at an all-boys school he detested it. Horan was soon thrown out and sent to study at the St. Andrew's School in Delaware, which he found much more enjoyable.^[4]

In 1954 Hume Horan joined the U.S. Army, leaving two years later to study at Harvard College. In 1960 he graduated from Harvard with a degree in American History^[4] and promptly joined the U.S. Foreign Service, though he came back to Harvard to earn his M.A. in 1963 at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies,^[1] during which time he studied Arabic under the British orientalist Sir Hamilton A. R. Gibb.^[4]

Horan's diplomatic career spanned the Greater Middle East; his first requested assignment was to a post in Baghdad, a rather unusual choice at the time.^[1]

• 1966-1970 Libyan desk officer
• 1970-1972 Political officer in Amman, Jordan
• 1972-1977 Deputy chief of mission in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
• 1980-1983 Ambassador to the Republic of Cameroon and non-resident ambassador to Equatorial Guinea
• 1983-1986 Ambassador to Sudan^[5]
• 1987 Diplomat-in-residence at Georgetown University
• 1987–1988 Ambassador to Saudi Arabia (ended by order from King Fahd)
• 1992- Ambassador to Ivory Coast
• Diplomat-in-residence at Howard University
• (-1998) Director of African training program at the Foreign Service Institute

Following the American-led invasion of Iraq, Horan worked for six months as a senior counselor on tribal and religious issues for the Coalition Provisional Authority in 2003.^[1] During this time he traveled across Iraq with little security, and was to meet Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani before a protest in Najaf by Muqtada al-Sadr prevented it. He was referred to by CPA head L. Paul Bremer as his "pet Bedouin,"^[2] and was rewarded for his work with the Distinguished Public Service Award by the Department of Defense. He died at Inova Fairfax Hospital in 2004 after battling prostate cancer.^[1]

Horan's first wife was Nancy Reinert Horan, and they had two sons and a daughter. After a divorce he remarried Lori Shoemaker, who gave birth to a son, Michael Horan, and daughter, Elizabeth Horan.^[1]

• Horan, Hume (March 2004). "Focus on Iraq: Restoring a Shattered Mosaic" (PDF). Foreign Service Journal. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-07-13.

• Appreciation: Hume Horan^{[permanent dead link]} from the American Foreign Service Association
• Hume Horan's distinguished family website on his father's side
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Arlington National Cemetery