Henry A. Byroade

Brigadier General Henry Alfred Byroade, (July 24, 1913 – December 31, 1993) of Indiana was an American career diplomat. Over the course of his career, he served as the American ambassador to Egypt (1955–1956), South Africa (1956–1959), Afghanistan (1959–1962), Burma (1963–1968), Philippines (1969–1973), and Pakistan (1973–1977).

Henry A. Byroade
Ambassador Byroade (right) being received by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, 1955
12th United States Ambassador to Pakistan
In office October 15, 1973 – April 23, 1977
President	Richard Nixon Gerald Ford Jimmy Carter
Preceded by	Joseph S. Farland
Succeeded by	Arthur W. Hummel, Jr.
United States Ambassador to the Philippines
In office August 29, 1969 – May 25, 1973
President	Richard Nixon
Preceded by	G. Mennen Williams
Succeeded by	William H. Sullivan
United States Ambassador to Burma
In office September 10, 1963 – June 11, 1968
President	John F. Kennedy Lyndon B. Johnson
Preceded by	John Scott Everton
Succeeded by	Arthur W. Hummel, Jr.
9th United States Ambassador to Afghanistan
In office March 21, 1959 – January 19, 1962
President	Dwight D. Eisenhower John F. Kennedy
Preceded by	Sheldon T. Mills
Succeeded by	John M. Steeves
United States Ambassador to South Africa
In office October 9, 1956 – January 24, 1959
President	Dwight D. Eisenhower
Preceded by	Edward T. Wailes
Succeeded by	Philip K. Crowe
United States Ambassador to Egypt
In office March 7, 1955 – September 10, 1956
President	Dwight D. Eisenhower
Preceded by	Jefferson Caffery
Succeeded by	Raymond A. Hare
2nd Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern, South Asian, and African Affairs
In office April 14, 1952 – January 25, 1955
President	Harry S. Truman Dwight D. Eisenhower
Preceded by	George C. McGhee
Succeeded by	George V. Allen
Personal details
Born	July 24, 1913 Maumee Township, Allen County, Indiana
Died	December 31, 1993(1993-12-31) (aged 80) Potomac, Maryland

Byroade graduated from West Point in 1937 and began as a career Army officer. His first post in army was on the Hawaiian Islands as a member of the Corps of Engineers from 1937 to 1939. The Corps sent him back in 1939 to engineering college. He got his master's degree in civil engineering from Cornell University in 1940 before being stationed at Langley Field, Virginia, helping to form the first aviation engineer regiment. In 1946, at the age of 32, he rose to the rank of Brigadier General. In 1949 he was seconded to the U.S. Department of State, where he headed the Office of German Affairs. In 1952, he made the decision to resign from the Army, and was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for Middle East, South Asia and Africa—a post he held until 1955.

In 1954 he attracted criticism from both Israel and the Arab world for the administration's policy declaration in which he told the Israelis, "You should drop the attitude of a conqueror and the conviction that force is the only policy that your neighbors will understand," and told the Arabs, "You should accept this state of Israel as an accomplished fact."[1] That same year, he referred to Israel's Zionist ideology and its free admission of Jews through the Law of Return as "a legitimate matter of concern both to the Arabs and to the Western countries."[2]

Byroade had been Ambassador to Egypt for more than a year when it was announced that he was being transferred. He was considered a friend of Arab causes but unable, during his Egyptian assignment, to prevent an arms deal between Czechoslovakia and Egypt, or to dissuade the Egyptian government of Gamal Abdel Nasser from expanding its campaigns against the West. Criticism of his effectiveness in Cairo in the Eisenhower Administration led to his reassignment to South Africa. Emanuel Neumann, chairman of the executive of the Zionist Organization of America urged that he be removed from Cairo, claiming he had been an apologist for the Egyptian government.

He retired from the Foreign Service in 1977. He died in December 1993 in Bethesda, Maryland.