Heyward Isham
Henry Heyward Isham, was a negotiator who played an important role in the talks with North Vietnam that led to the Peace accord of 1973. He was born in New York City in 1926 and studied International Relations at Yale, graduating in 1947 before being posted to the American Embassy in Berlin during the Cold War. From 1955 through 1957, he was chief of the consular section and political office at the United States Embassy in Moscow. From 1974 to 1977 after a posting in Hong Kong, Isham was the American ambassador to Haiti.
After his retirement from the diplomatic service he worked as an Editor with Doubleday publishers. During this period he supervised the publication of the memoirs of Andrei A. Gromyko, the Soviet foreign minister from 1957 to 1985, and other books by Russians.
He was married to the artist Sheila Eaton with whom he had three children. Son Christopher Isham was named Vice President and Washington Bureau Chief for CBS News in July 2007. Son Ralph Heyward Isham is a former Fellow with the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee during the SALT II treaty hearings. He also served on the staffs of Congressman James W. Symington of St. Louis, Missouri and Senator Edward Brooke of Massachusetts. Daughter Sandra Isham died in 1996.
