Fereydoun Hoveyda, 82; ex-Iranian ambassador to the United Nations

Fereydoun Hoveyda, 82, a former Iranian ambassador to the United Nations, died of cancer Friday at his home in Clifton, Va., a family friend said.

He served as Iran’s ambassador to the U.N. from 1971 to 1979, the year his brother, former Prime Minister Amir Abbas Hoveyda, was executed after Iran’s Islamic revolution. After leaving the Iranian foreign service, Hoveyda became a senior fellow at the National Committee on American Foreign Policy.

His books include “What Do the Arabs Want?” (1991), “The Broken Crescent: The Threat of Militant Islamic Fundamentalism” (2002) and “The Shah and the Ayatollah: Iranian Mythology and Islamic Revolution” (2003).

Hoveyda was born in Damascus, Syria, in 1924. He earned a doctorate in international law and economics from the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1948 he participated in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

From 1952 to 1966 Hoveyda worked in UNESCO’s mass communications department. In 1965, his brother became prime minister of Iran; the next year Fereydoun Hoveyda became Iran’s deputy foreign minister in charge of international organizations.

Hoveyda was a founding contributor of Cahiers du Cinema, the influential French film magazine. He also wrote the screenplay for Roberto Rossellini’s 1959 film “India.”