{{Short description|American politician (1899–1973)}} {{Infobox officeholder | image = Philip Mason Sears 1924.jpg | caption = Sears in 1924 | name = Mason Sears | birth_date = {{birth date|1899|12|29}} | birth_place = Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|1973|12|13|1899|12|29}} | death_place = Faulkner Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. | resting_place = | occupation = {{ubl|Salesman|Politician}} | party = Republican | spouse = Zilla MacDougall | children = Philip Mason Sears | alma_mater = Harvard College | title = Member of the Massachusetts Senate from the 2nd Norfolk District | term_start = 1947 | term_end = 1949 | predecessor = James Austin Peckham | successor = Leslie Bradley Cutler | title2 = Member of the Massachusetts Senate from the Norfolk and Middlesex District | term_start2 = 1939 | term_end2 = 1942 | predecessor2 = Samuel H. Wragg | successor2 = James Austin Peckham }} '''Philip Mason Sears''' (born December 29, 1899 — December 13, 1973) was an American politician and diplomat who served as an ambassador, member of the Massachusetts General Court, and the chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Party.<ref name=graveyard/>
==Personal life== Sears was born on December 29, 1899, to Philip Shelton Sears, a sculptor, and Mary Cabot (Higginson) Sears.<ref name=graveyard/> He attended St. Mark's School and graduated from Harvard College in 1922.<ref name=obit/><ref name=familypapers>{{cite book|title=Sears and MacDougall family papers}}{{full citation needed|date=July 2022}}</ref> On December 29, 1924, he married Zilla MacDougall, the daughter of Admiral William D. MacDougall.<ref name=graveyard/><ref name=Kauffmann />
He had a son, Philip Mason Sears, and two grandchildren.<ref name=obit/> He lived in Dedham, Massachusetts and died at the Faulkner Hospital.<ref name=obit/>
==Naval career== Sears served in the United States Navy, where he was an attaché to the United States State Department delegation in Peking, China.<ref name=familypapers /><ref name=Kauffmann>{{cite book|title=Defiant diplomacy: Henrik Kauffmann, Denmark, and the United States in World War II and the Cold War, 1939–1958|year=2003|publisher=P. Lang|isbn= 9780820468198|author=Bo Lidegaard & W. Glyn Jones}}</ref> Here he met Danish ambassador Henrik Kauffmann, who would become his friend and later marry Sears' sister-in-law Charlotte MacDougall.<ref name=familypapers /> Sears also served in the Navy during World War II.<ref name=familypapers />
==Political career== Sears was a Member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1935 to 1937 and the Massachusetts Senate from 1939 to 1943 and again from 1947 to 1949.<ref name=PublicOfficers>{{cite book |title=1947–1948 Public Officers of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts | url=https://archive.org/stream/publicofficersof19471948bost#page/72/mode/2up }}</ref><ref name=obit/> Sears was Massachusetts Republican State Chair from 1949 to 1950 and was delegate to 1948 and 1952 Republican National Conventions from Massachusetts.<ref name=graveyard/><ref name=obit/> He stepped down as chairman of the State Committee after his attempt to liberalize the party failed to gain traction with other party leaders.<ref name=obit/>
Sears worked on the United States Senate campaigns of Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., a colleague of his in the state legislature and the husband of his second cousin.<ref>{{cite book|last=Miller|first=William Johnson|title=Henry Cabot Lodge: A Biography|url=https://archive.org/details/henrycabotlodgeb00mill|url-access=registration|year=1967|publisher=Heineman}}</ref>
==Diplomatic career==
He was nominated by President Dwight Eisenhower and served from 1953 to 1960 as the United States representative to United Nations Trusteeship Council.<ref name=graveyard/><ref name=obit/> In 1960, he was ambassador and chairman of the United Nations Visiting Mission to East Africa.<ref name=obit/>
Sears was United States' delegate to Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie's silver jubilee in 1955. Two years later, in 1957, he accompanied then-Vice President Richard Nixon as the United States' delegate to the independence celebration of Ghana.<ref name=obit/> Sears also served as special Ambassador to Cameroon' independence celebration.<ref name=obit/>
He wrote a book, ''Years of High Purpose'', about U.S. foreign policy towards Africa under John Foster Dulles.<ref name=graveyard/>
==Popular culture== *W. Douglas Burden wrote of his hunting trips with Mason Sears, to Inner Mongolia and Indo-China in 1922 and 1923, after they both graduated from college. The relevant chapters are "On the Sino-Mongolian Frontier" and "Glimpses of the Jungle" in ''Look to the Wilderness''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Burden |first1=W. Douglas |title=Look to the Wilderness |date=1956 |publisher=Little, Brown and Company |location=Boston |pages=87–143}}</ref>
==See also== * Massachusetts legislature: 1935–1936, 1937–1938, 1939, 1941–1942, 1947–1948
==References== {{Reflist|refs=
<ref name=graveyard>{{cite web|title=Sears, Philip Mason (1899–1973|url=http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/sears.html#666.89.93|work=PoliticalGraveyard.com|publisher=Lawrence Kestenbaum|access-date=2 December 2011}}</ref>
<ref name=obit>{{cite news | url = https://www.nytimes.com/1973/12/15/archives/mason-sears-dead-exus-aide-at-un.html | title = MASON SEARS DEAD; EX‐U.S. AIDE AT U.N. | date = December 15, 1973 | access-date = October 26, 2018 | newspaper = The New York Times }}</ref>
}}
{{S-start}} {{S-ppo}} {{succession box | before = Lloyd B. Waring | title = Chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Party | years=1949–1950 | after =Daniel Tyler Jr.| }} {{S-end}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sears, Mason}} Category:1899 births Category:1973 deaths Category:Harvard College alumni Category:Massachusetts Republican Party chairs Category:Massachusetts state senators Category:Members of the Massachusetts House of Representatives Category:St. Mark's School (Massachusetts) alumni Category:Politicians from Dedham, Massachusetts Category:20th-century members of the Massachusetts General Court