Robert Smith Simpson

R. Smith Simpson

R. Smith Simpson, 103, of Charlottesville, died on Sunday, September 5, 2010, at his home in Westminster Canterbury.

He was born on November 9, 1906, in Arlington, Virginia, the son of the late Hendree P. Simpson and Edith Smith Simpson and was preceded in death by his wife, Henriette L. Simpson; and a brother, Ewing G. Simpson.

Smith Simpson was a retired professor, public servant and diplomat who served his country during the Great Depression in the National Recovery Administration, served in the War Shipping Administration and State Department during World War II and was a consultant to state governments on unemployment and relief.

He taught at the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce at University of Pennsylvania from 1935 until 1942 while serving as an advisor on unemployment compensation, relief legislation and administration to the governors of Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

He also wrote reports and position papers for United States labor representatives to the International Labor Organization.

At the end of World War II he helped develop the United Nations charter and create the labor attach‚ program in the United States Foreign Service.

He served as a Foreign Service officer from 1945 until 1962 at embassies in Brussels, Athens and Mexico, and in consular posts in Bombay and Lourenco Marques (now Maputo), Mozambique.

He also was a faculty member at Georgetown University, where he helped to found the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy.

An authority on diplomacy, he wrote Anatomy of the State Department (Houghton-Mifflin, 1967) and The Crisis in American Diplomacy: Shots across the Bow of the State Department (Christopher, 1980) and served as editor of Instruction in Diplomacy: The Liberal Arts Approach (American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1972).

He researched numerous papers and penned articles for the American Journal of International Law, American Political Science Review, Social Service Review, American Labor Legislation Review, and Washington Post. He also contributed to reports and studies of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Commission to Study the Organization of Peace.

In 1983 he launched an annual debate on diplomatic issues between University of Virginia's Jefferson Literary and Debating Society and Washington Literary Society and Debating Union.

Smith Simpson is survived by two daughters, Margaret S. Maurin and her husband, Albert J. Stunkard, of Bryn Mawr, Pa. and Zelia S. Broyles of Roanoke; three grandchildren, Annette Lanniee of Hot Springs; Christine Mandojana and her husband, Marcos, of Bogota, Colombia, and Elana Maurin and her husband, Keith Renshaw, of Burke; and five great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held 2:30 p.m. Saturday, September 11, 2010, at Westminster Canterbury with the Reverend Earle Hilgert officiating.


This obituary was originally published in the Daily Progress.