Earl E.T. Smith; Former Ambassador, Mayor

Earl E.T. Smith, a former U.S. ambassador to Cuba and onetime mayor of Palm Beach, has died. He was 87.

He died Friday in his Palm Beach home after an undisclosed illness.

Smith’s public career was distinguished by appointments from four U.S. presidents.

He was appointed to the War Production Board before Pearl Harbor by President Franklin D. Roosevelt; as ambassador to Cuba from 1957 to 1959 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower; as ambassador to Switzerland by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, which Smith declined, and as a member of the Presidential Commission on Broadcasting to Cuba by President Ronald Reagan.

Smith was a four-time delegate to the Republican National Convention and a member of the Republican Platform Committee in 1960 and 1980. Smith had lived in Palm Beach for more than 50 years and was its mayor from 1971 to 1977.

In 1962, he wrote “The Fourth Floor,” about Fidel Castro’s revolution.

Born in Newport, R.I., Smith attended Yale University. In 1925, he became a member of the New York Coffee and Sugar Exchange. In 1929, he founded his own brokerage firm, Paige, Smith & Remick.

During his business career, Smith served as director of various corporations, including the Bank of Palm Beach & Trust Co., CF&I; Steel Corp., Lionel Corp., the New York Central Railroad, Sotheby’s and U.S. Sugar Corp.

During World War II, he was a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army and the U.S. 8th Air Force Intelligence.