Background
He was born in Manila on January 14, 1901.
Diplomat journalist Soldier statesman
He was born in Manila on January 14, 1901.
He studied at the Manila High School, the University of the Philippines in Manila (graduated, 1918), and Columbia University, in New York City, where he received an M. A. in 1921.
He became a professor of English at the University of the Philippines in 1921. The next year he became a member of the Philippine Independence Mission to the United States.
At the same time, he began a career in journalism, which in the period from 1933 to 1941 included ownership and editorship of a chain of four Manila newspapers.
On December 10, 1941, three days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he was commissioned a major in the United States Army and became press aide to the Pacific commander, General Douglas MacArthur.
He was one of the last men to leave Bataan before the surrender of that peninsular bastion in April 1942. Romulo later served as aide-de-camp to General MacArthur in Australia, winning promotion to brigadier general in 1945.
He was chairman of the Philippine delegation at the founding conference of the United Nations at San Francisco in 1945 and in 1946 was appointed permanent Philippine delegate to the United Nations; he served as president of the General Assembly in 1949.
He was the Philippine secretary of foreign affairs, 1950-1951, and ambassador to the United States, 1951-1953. He resigned as UN delegate and ambassador in 1953 to run for the Philippine presidency but withdrew to support Ramon Magsaysay.
In 1954 Romulo became President Magsaysay's special and personal ambassador to Washington. He continued in that position under President Carlos Garcia.
Most of this period he was also the Philippine delegate to the United Nations. In addition to plays and English textbooks, he wrote Changing Tides in the Far East (1928), A Realistic Re-examination of the Philippine Problem (1934), I Saw the Fall of the Philippines (1942), Mother America (1943), My Brother Americans (1945), See the Philippines Rise (1946), The United (a novel, 1951), The Magsaysay Story (1956), and Mission to Asia (1964).
In 1969 he again became foreign secretary. He served in that position until his retirement in 1984.
He died in Manila on December 15, 1985.