Most Lafayette Drivers Have No Idea Who Ambassador Caffery Really Was

(LAFAYETTE, La) - If you’ve spent any real time driving around Acadiana, you’ve sat at a red light on Ambassador Caffery Parkway. It’s one of the busiest corridors in the region. But here’s the thing: most people have no clue who that name actually belongs to. As it turns out, the man behind the name lived a life that reads more like a movie script than a street sign.

Who Was Ambassador Caffery Parkway Named After?

His name was Jefferson Caffery. He was born right here in Lafayette in 1886, and by the time he died in 1974, he'd spent 43 years in the Foreign Service, served as U.S. ambassador to six countries, and worked under eight different presidents. Here's the stuff about him that'll surprise you.

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He Served Under Eight Presidents

Caffery’s career stretched from 1911 to 1955, putting him in service during the administrations of Taft, Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower. That’s not just longevity. That’s being in the room through two world wars and the early Cold War. Lafayette doesn’t have many names tied to that level of global influence.

He Was a Ragin' Cajun Before There Were Ragin' Cajuns

Long before the diplomacy, Caffery was a student in the very first class at Southwestern Louisiana Industrial Institute, the school that's now UL Lafayette. He went on to graduate from Tulane in 1906, came back home to teach at the Institute, and here's the kicker. He coached the football team. For at least one game in 1907, Caffery was the head coach, and his squad beat Crowley 11 to 5. Undefeated record. A perfect 1-0, never lost a game. Not many ambassadors can say they went out on top as a football coach.

Ambassador to Six Different Countries

Caffery earned the “Ambassador” title the hard way, representing the United States in six different countries: El Salvador, Colombia, Cuba, Brazil, France, and Egypt. His post in France was especially significant. He became ambassador in late 1944, just as Paris was being liberated during World War II. He stayed through 1949, helping navigate the early rebuilding of postwar Europe.

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Ambassador Caffery Assassination Attempt

In 1934, while Caffery was ambassador to Cuba, four assailants set up outside his home in Havana and waited for him to leave for his daily trip to the yacht club. It was an assassination attempt, plain and simple. One of the attackers was killed by Caffery's bodyguard, the other three got away, and Caffery himself walked away without a scratch. The story landed on the front page of the New Orleans Times-Picayune. A Lafayette boy dodging a hit squad in Havana. You can't make it up.

He Was in the Room for Major World War II Decisions

In January 1943, Caffery took part in the Potenji River Conference in Natal, Brazil, also called the Natal Conference. It was a face-to-face meeting between President Roosevelt and Brazilian President Getúlio Vargas, held aboard a U.S. ship as Roosevelt was heading home from the Casablanca Conference. The talks there helped shape Brazil's role in the war and led to the creation of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force. When the big wartime decisions were getting made, Caffery had a seat at the table.

His Time in Egypt Put Him at the Center of the Suez Crisis

Caffery's last posting was Egypt, from 1949 to 1955, and he picked a wild moment to be there. The 1952 Egyptian revolution happened on his watch, the one that ended with King Farouk giving up the throne and brought figures like Gamal Abdel Nasser to power. Caffery ended up serving as the go-between for the Egyptian and British governments, and his experience and the respect he'd earned helped broker the gradual withdrawal of British forces from the Suez Canal zone.

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Not all of it was heroic

Honesty matters, so here's the harder chapter. As ambassador to Colombia in 1928, Caffery was tied up in the events around the Banana Massacre. Banana workers had gone on strike over brutal conditions and getting paid in company store credit by the United Fruit Company. To protect the company's interests, Caffery reported to Washington that strike leaders would be arrested. Martial law followed, and an unknown number of workers and their family members were shot by the military. In a dispatch he sent at the end of December 1928, Caffery passed along a United Fruit lawyer's claim that the number of strikers killed topped a thousand. It's a dark piece of his record, and it's part of the full picture of who he was.

The Pope made him an honorary gentleman

After he retired in 1955, Caffery and his wife settled in Rome, where he served as an honorary Papal gentleman to three different popes: Pius XII, John XXIII, and Paul VI. He was also knighted in the Sovereign Military Order of Malta for his service to the Catholic Church. From Lafayette to the Vatican.

Read More: 10 People You Didn't Know Were From Louisiana

The honors piled up

Over his career Caffery collected just about every honor a diplomat could.

• France gave him the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour in 1949.
• Egypt decorated him on his way out in 1955.
• Notre Dame awarded him the Laetare Medal in 1954.
• His fellow Foreign Service officers handed him the Foreign Service Cup in 1971.
• And in 2000, years after his death, Louisiana inducted him into the Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Winnfield.

He Came Back Home in the End

For all the capitals and all the years abroad, Caffery came back to Lafayette in 1973, not long before his wife Gertrude passed away. He died here the following spring, in April 1974, at 87 years old. Both of them are buried in the cemetery behind St. John's Cathedral downtown, a few minutes from the road that carries his name.

So next time you're stuck in traffic on Ambassador Caffery, you'll know. The parkway's named for a Lafayette kid who coached a football team to a perfect record, survived a hit squad, brokered peace deals on the world stage, and shook hands with eight presidents and three popes. Not bad for a hometown boy.