John H. Spencer

Who was John H. Spencer?

Dr. John H. Spencer was an American historian. He attended Grinnell College in Iowa and Harvard College in Massachusetts. In 1935 in Paris he was offered a job to represent and advise the Ethiopian government in the international legal matters, and during the Italian occupation of Ethiopia and the Second Italo-Abyssinian War he served as a legal advisor to Emperor Haile Selassie and accompanied him to the League of Nations on June 30, 1936 to ask for assistance. In October 1937, Dr. Spencer travelled to the United States and discussed the legal aspect of the Italy-Ethiopian conflict from 1934 to 1937, which appeared in the American Journal of International Law. In 1936 he left his position in the Ethiopian government and joined the United States Navy, then the Department of State and the Department of Justice. After the defeat of the Italians in Africa, Spencer rejoined the Ethipoian government and was a principal advisor until 1943.

On December 19, 1944 he successfully negotiated Ethiopia from Britain.