Henry Richardson Labouisse Jr.

Henry Labouisse
Executive Director of UNICEF
In office
June 1965 – January 1980
Secretary GeneralU Thant
Kurt Waldheim
Preceded byMaurice Pate
Succeeded byJim Grant
United States Ambassador to Greece
In office
March 7, 1962 – May 8, 1965
PresidentJohn Kennedy
Lyndon Johnson
Preceded byEllis O. Briggs
Succeeded byPhillips Talbot
Director of the UNRWA
In office
June 1954 – June 1958
Secretary GeneralDag Hammarskjöld
Preceded byJohn Blandford Jr.
Succeeded byJohn Davis
Personal details
Born(1904-02-11)February 11, 1904
New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.
DiedMarch 25, 1987(1987-03-25) (aged 83)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Political partyDemocratic
Spouse(s)Elizabeth Scriven Clark (1935–1945)
Ève Curie (1954–1987)
Children1
EducationPrinceton University (BA)
Harvard University (JD)
AwardsNobel Peace Prize

Henry Richardson Labouisse Jr. (February 11, 1904 – March 25, 1987) was an American diplomat and statesman. He was the third Director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) from 1954 to 1958. He was the director of the United Nations Children's Fund for years (1965–1979). He was also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. A lawyer, he was United States Ambassador to France 1952–1954, as well as United States Ambassador to Greece 1962–1965. Labouisse had been the principal United States Department of State official dealing with the implementation of the Marshall Plan.[1]

He was born to Henry Richardson Labouisse Sr. and Frances Devereux (Huger) Labouisse, a granddaughter of Leonidas Polk, in New Orleans, Louisiana. He married Elizabeth Scriven Clark on June 29, 1935. He married Ève Curie in 1954, nine years after Elizabeth died. The marriage with Ève made him the son-in-law of Marie and Pierre Curie.[2] In 1965, he accepted on behalf of UNICEF the Nobel Prize for Peace and became one of the five Nobel Prize winners of the Curie family.[2]

There is a prize in his honor established at Princeton University, his alma mater, which is given to a graduating senior each year.[3]

  1. ^ Benjamin N. Schiff, Refugees Unto the Third Generation: UN Aid to Palestinians, (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1995), p. 292.
  2. ^ a b Feldman, Burton (November 2, 2000). The Nobel Prize: A History of Genius, Controversy, and Prestige. Arcade Publishing. ISBN 9781559705929. Retrieved October 8, 2011. Henry R. Labouisse.
  3. ^ Henry Richardson Labouisse '26 Prize – Guide to Postgraduate Fellowships – Princeton Archived 2008-10-05 at the Wayback Machine