Henry S. Villard

Henry Serrano Villard (March 30, 1900 – January 21, 1996) was an American foreign service officer, ambassador and author.

Henry S. Villard was born in Manhattan, New York City March 30, 1900. He was the great-grandson of William Lloyd Garrison, the prominent American journalist and abolitionist. He was the grandson of Henry Villard, the American railroad tycoon who commissioned the construction of the Villard Houses in Manhattan.

As a teenager he served as a volunteer ambulance driver in Italy during World War I, becoming friends with Ernest Hemingway when both were patients in a Red Cross hospital in Milan. He graduated from Harvard in 1921, having been inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. During his years at Harvard he served as editor of the The Harvard Crimson, the university’s student newspaper.

Henry Villard was married to Tamara Gringutes Villard (d. 1990) for 50 years. They had two children: Dimitri Villard and Alexandra Villard de Borchgrave, an author and the wife of American journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave.

Villard died of pneumonia on January 21, 1996 in Los Angeles, California at the age of 95.

In 1928 Villard joined the United States Foreign Service and started his foreign service as vice consul in Tehran, Iran in 1928. In his capacity as an expert on Africa, he was a leader within the Department of State in the planning for the Allied invasion of North Africa during World War II. After that successful operation he served as the U. S. liaison to the Free French Forces in Africa.

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