Hoveyda was born in Damascus on September 23, 1924 where his father, Habibollah Hoveyda, was the Consul-General of Persia. His mother was Afsar-ol-Molouk Fatmeh, a Qajar princess. Upon marriage his father was given the title of Ayn al-Molk (Eye of the Kingdom) by the Qajar ruler of the country.
His brother, Amir Abbas Hoveyda, a former prime minister of Iran under the Shah, was executed after the Iranian Revolution in 1979. They were nephews of Abdol Hossein Sardari, who is known for saving many Jews in Paris during World War II.
Fereydoun Hoveyda was raised in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. He completed a Ph.D. in international law and economics at the Sorbonne, Paris, France in 1948.
Hoveyda joined the foreign ministry in the early 1940s. A participant in the final drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, he worked in UNESCO from 1951 to 1966. In the late 1960s, he returned to Iran and worked in the Iranian Foreign Ministry as the undersecretary for international and economic affairs. He was also deputy foreign minister. From 1971 to 1979 he represented Iran at the United Nations.
Having been forced out of the Iranian Foreign Ministry following the 1979 revolution, Hoveyda became a senior fellow and member of the Executive Committee of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy (NCAFP).
Apart from politics, he was active in the field of cinema and was a founding member of the editorial board of the celebrated film magazine Cahiers du cinéma.
Hoveyda was a well-known author of 18 novels and non-fiction books in French, English, and German. He was also the cowriter of the screenplay for Roberto Rossellini's 1959 film India.
Hoveyda wed twice. His first spouse, Touran Mansour, with whom he married in the 1940s was the daughter of Ali Mansour, one of the prime ministers of Iran.
Hoveyda died in Clifton on November 3, 2006 at age 82.
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