Watson, Adam 1914–2007

(Scipio, John Hugh Adam Watson)

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born August 10, 1914, in Leicester, England; died of cancer, August 21, 2007, in Royal Tunbridge Wells, England. Diplomat, historian, political scientist, educator, and author. Watson served his country as a diplomat and foreign service officer for more than thirty years, beginning in 1937. His work took him around the world and back again, to every populated continent except South America, where he had spent his childhood, and Australia, which he visited briefly in retirement as a university professor. Watson spent most of the World War II years in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. The early 1960s found him in Africa, where he served as ambassador to Mali, Senegal, Mauritania, and Togo. At the height of the Cuban missile crisis he was the British ambassador to Cuba. He retired from active service in 1968. In 1958 Watson's service to his country was recognized when he was decorated a commander of the elite Order of St. Michael and St. George. Watson's long and distinguished diplomatic career gave him the opportunity to develop expertise in international politics, and he pursued this field of research for the rest of his life. In the 1970s Watson became the director general of the International Association for Cultural Freedom and chair of the Foundation for European Intellectual Mutual Assistance. From 1978 through 1995 he was a professor of international relations at the University of Virginia. Watson also published most of his books during the time he spent in Virginia. These include Toleration in Religion and Politics (1980), Diplomacy: The Dialogue between States (1982), The Evolution of International Society: A Comparative Historical Analysis (1992), The Limits of Independence: Relations between States in the Modern World (1997), and Hegemony and History (2007). He also wrote a book on Africa under the sobriquet Scipio.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Times (London, England), October 17, 2007, p. 62.