Speaker Information

Global Issues 2012

Dr. Wayne Smith

Dr. Wayne S. Smith received his university education at La Universidad de las Americas in Mexico City from which he holds a B.A. and an M.A. (summa cum laude); at Columbia University from which he holds another M.A.; and at George Washington University where he received a third M.A. and a Ph.D. During his 25 years in the Department of State, which he joined in 1957, Dr. Smith saw service in the Soviet Union, Argentina, and Brazil, as well as in Cuba. In 1973, he received the Meritorious Honor Award for the sustained excellence of his political reporting from Buenos Aires.

When he decided to leave the Foreign Service in 1982 because of fundamental disagreements with the Reagan Administration’s policy toward Cuba, he was Chief of Mission at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, Cuba and was recognized as the Department of State’s leading expert on Cuba. Since 1983, he has been an Adjunct Professor of Latin American Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Since 1992, he has also been a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington, D.C. His best known book is The Closest of Enemies: A Personal and Diplomatic Account of the Castro Years (W. W. Norton, 1987).