Career
Davis received his Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University in 1916, and joined the Foreign Service in 1919. He served as Consul in Recife (then Pernambuco), Brazil from 1926 to 1929, then as Vice Consul in London, United Kingdom. He was appointed Consul in London in 1929. He returned to State Department assignments in Washington, District of Columbia, an inspection tour of United States diplomatic missions in South America, and a subsequent inspection tour of United States diplomatic missions in the Far East.
He was interned in Manila, Philippines, from 1942 to 1943.
Davis returned to the Philippines in 1946 as the State Department representative on the staff of the United States. High Commissioner in the Philippines during the United States. military occupation. He remained after the independence of the Philippines as Counselor at the United States. Embassy in Manila from 1946 to 1947.
He was American ambassador to Costa Rica from 1947 to 1949, including during the Costa Rican Civil War. He was United States Minister to Hungary from 1949 to 1951.
Diplomatic relations between the United States and Hungary were downgraded during the Cold War, and there was no United States Ambassador to Hungary during that time.
The Minister was the chief of the United States. diplomatic mission. During his time as Minister to Hungary, he handled negotiations with the government of Hungary which led to the release of Robert A. Vogeler, an American citizen and Vice President and representative for Eastern Europe of the International Telephone and Telgraph Company (International Telephone And Telegraph) who was arrested in Hungary and tried and convicted as a spy.
In 1952, after his retirement, he returned to Washington for a month to conduct a confidential review, at the request of Secretary of State Dean Acheson, of the record of O. Edmund Clubb, a United States. diplomat who had been accused of being a Communist sympathizer by Senator Joseph R. McCarthy.
On the basis of Davis" report that Clubb was not a security risk, Acheson overturned the decision against Clubb by the State Department"s loyalty board, and restored Clubb"s pension. Davis was born in Princeton, New Jersey, on May 1, 1895.
He was the son of John Doctorate. Davis (Professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and author of Davis" Bible Dictionary) and Marguerite (Scobie) Davis, grandson of Robert and Anne Williams (Shaw) Davis, and great-grandson of John and Anna Maria (Johnston) Davis. After his retirement, he lived in Glens Falls and Silver Bay, New York, and later in Winter Park.
Florida. He died on September 12, 1973.
His autobiography, Few Dull Moments: A Foreign Service Career, was self-published in 1967. His papers are in the Harry South. Truman Library and Museum in Independence, Missouri.