The Foreign Service Journal, February 2008

alliance at a vital stage in the war effort. The State Department reluc- tantly gave in to outside pressure — but not before promoting Henderson and assigning him as the new U.S. minister to Iraq (1943-1945). This career-shifting incident is document- ed in meticulous detail by H.W. Brands in his 1991 Oxford University Press biography: Inside the Cold War: Loy Henderson and the Rise of the American Empire, 1918-1961 . Postwar Career Henderson’s subsequent career is well known. After his tour in Iraq, he would return to Washington for a three-year tour as chief of the Division of Near Eastern and African Affairs. From there, he would go on to serve as the U.S. ambassador to India (1948- 1951) and then Iran (1951-1954). Al- though he was no longer working directly on Soviet affairs, Henderson remained in regular contact with Kennan and Bohlen. As a result, he played a key role in developing the new U.S. policy of Soviet containment as the Cold War expanded beyond its original borders in Europe. In 1955, the State Department put Henderson’s now-legendary manage- ment talents to work once again by selecting him as the under secretary for administration. In addition to car- rying out a major reorganization of the department and helping modernize the Foreign Service, Henderson was asked to oversee the opening of the first U.S. embassies in the newly inde- pendent countries of post-colonial Africa in 1957. After his retirement from the Foreign Service in early 1961, Hend- erson taught international politics at American University until 1968. He died on March 24, 1986, in Bethesda, Md., several months before Stanford University’s Hoover Institution Press published his memoirs: A Question of Trust: The Origins of U.S.-Soviet Diplomatic Relations. 44 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 8 Henderson played a key role in developing the new U.S. policy of Soviet containment as the Cold War expanded beyond its original borders.