L. Reece Smyth

About

Reece Smyth, representing the US Department of State, was a National Security Affairs Fellow for the academic year 2019–20 at the Hoover Institution.

A career member of the Senior Foreign Service, Reece served as Chargé d’Affaires ad interim at the US Embassy in Dublin from January 2017 to July 2019, where he advanced US bilateral relations with Ireland on trade, investment, and cyber security.  Previous assignments include as the political counselor at the US Embassy in Beirut and the deputy director of the State Department’s Office of UN Political Affairs. Reece also served at the US Mission to NATO as the action officer in the NATO-Russia Council, as senior economic officer in the State Department’s Office of Arabian Peninsula Affairs, and as a watch officer in the Operations Center. Other overseas tours include Skopje, Sarajevo, and Islamabad. 

Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Reece worked in the private sector as a senior trade consultant in Houston, London and New York.

Reece is originally from Dayton Ohio but grew up in Houston, Texas. He is a graduate of Baylor University and holds master’s degrees from Princeton University and the Université Libre de Bruxelles. He speaks Russian, Serbo-Croatian, and French.