Cherif Guellal

Cherif Guellal (19 August 1932 – 7 April 2009) was an Algerian businessman and diplomat, who fought in the Algerian independence movement. He served as the Algerian Ambassador to the United States and the Algerian Ambassador to Canada.

Biography Cherif Guellal attended the university at Aix-en-Provence in southern France, and graduated in 1956. Taking the lead from his mother, who was a leader in the Algerian anti-French resistance movement, he joined the government in exile. He worked to build support for the movement, mainly from India.

He served as a key aide to the resistance leader Ahmed Ben Bella, who became the first president of post-colonial Algeria. He was sent to Washington, D.C., as the new country's first Ambassador to the United States. His primary role was to protect the Algerian oil interests and handle the independence of Algeria in the cold-war era. The US-Algeria relations were also tensed by the establishment of the Vietcongs' first mission outside of Vietnam, in Algeria. Cherif Guellal also had to handle Algeria's official ties with Cuba and the tension it generated within the US diplomatic corps. In a 1964 speech, he stated, "We wish to be masters in our own house and not junior partners of the great powers". According to the writer Barbara Howar in her 1973 memoir Laughing All The Way, Guellal and Johnson both originated from oil-rich states (Texas for Johnson) and shared a similar mentality towards politics.