Naef Khoury Basile, M.D.
1911 – 1995
Naef K. Basile began his life as Naef Khoury; he was born on 8 December 1911, in the village of Hadeth El-Joubbeh in the mountains of northern Lebanon (photo above). His parents emigrated to the United States with his older sister when he was still a baby, and Naef remained in Lebanon to grow up with his grandparents and other family members. His three other siblings were born in the United States, and he would not be united with all of his immediate family until he was an adult.
Naef attended French-language schools in Lebanon, and throughout his childhood, he was an eager pupil who excelled in his studies. In the 1990's, there remained some villagers in Hadeth who recalled seeing his long hours of study at night by candlelight. While still a young man in Lebanon, he became interested in genealogical research, which led to his discovery and reclaiming of the ancestral family name of Basile that had been lost generations before.
After attending St. Joseph University in
Beirut and studying medicine at the
Sorbonne in Paris, Naef followed his parents’ example by emigrating to America in 1939. In 1945, he became a citizen of the United States, where he practiced medicine until his retirement in 1994.
An Illustrious Medical Career
During his professional years as an obstetrician and gynecologist, Dr. Basile held concurrent appointments at numerous hospitals in New York City, and served for decades on the faculties of both Cornell University and Columbia University medical schools. He was renowned for his dedication to his patients, and delivered tens of thousands of children during a career that spanned 5 decades.
A pioneering gynecological surgeon, Dr. Basile was also the author of numerous publications in medical journals in the United States and Europe.
During his multi-faceted medical career, Dr. Basile served on the research team whose work, under the leadership of Dr. George Papanicolaou at Cornell’s New York Hospital, led to the development of the Pap smear, the universal diagnostic test for the detection of cervical cancer.
Dr. Naef K. Basile instructs a class of medical students and nurses on methods of diagnosis.
Together with famed Lebanese-American entertainer Danny Thomas and other Lebanese and Syrian Americans, Dr. Basile was a co-founder of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, today one of the world's premier medical institutions. Serving as Vice President and being the only medical doctor on the original board of ALSAC (American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities) – the organization founded in 1957 for the purpose of establishing the children's hospital – Dr. Basile played a vital role in planning for the hospital and the selection of the hospital's first director, Dr. Donald Pinkel. Naef Basile's name is inscribed for posterity with those of the other founding officers, on the pedestal of the magnificent statue of St. Jude at the main entrance to the hospital.
Enduring Love for Lebanon and its people
Naef K. Basile plants a tree at the Statue of Liberty on behalf of the Lebanese-American community.
In addition to his extensive medical career, Naef Basile worked tirelessly throughout his life for and with the Lebanese people in his native land, in the United States, and throughout the world.
Dr. Basile established and led several national and international organizations, such as the World Lebanese Cultural Union and the League of Lebanese Societies of North American.
He was the founding president of the American Lebanese National Committee, the first organization in the U.S. to represent Lebanese interests in Washington, DC.
In 1966, Naef K. Basile was named Man of the Year by the American Lebanese Society.
Dr. Basile served as an advisor to the U.S. government on Lebanese affairs across three decades through several U.S. administrations. He also was instrumental in establishing the Lebanese Mission to the United Nations. He worked closely with Senator Edward Kennedy and other members of Congress, as well as private philanthropists, to obtain aid for the Lebanese people throughout the years of Lebanon’s civil war in the
1970’s and 80’s.
Naef K. Basile (center) meeting in Washington DC with U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance (left).
Remarkably, in addition to his medical practice, his political and diplomatic activities, and his community organizing for the U.S. and global Lebanese diaspora, Dr. Basile was also a newspaper publisher: for more than 20 years, he produced an English-language newspaper, The Heritage, which reached Lebanese emigrés on five continents.
In recognition of his many services to Lebanon, Naef Khoury Basile was made a Chevalier of Lebanon's National Order of the Cedar (photo).
Service to His Church
Naef K. Basile (left) with Maronite Patriarch El Meouchy (third from left) and U.S. President Lyndon Johnson (fourth from left) at the dedication of the Maronite Seminary in Washington DC.
Also a devoted member of The Maronite Church – an eastern Catholic church in full communion with the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church – Dr. Basile was founder and secretary general of the Maronite Union of the U.S.A. and Canada. He had a pivotal role in the establishment of the Maronite Seminary in the United States, now located in Washington, DC.
Naef Basile's service to his church in this and many other endeavors was recognized when he was made a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre by Pope John XXIII. He also a member of the Order of St. Sharbel of the Maronite Church.
A Family Man
After he established his medical practice in New York, Naef met Mavis Rebecca Williams, a successful fashion designer from the southern US, born in Georgia and raised in Florida. They were married in 1953 at Our Lady of Lebanon in Brooklyn,
New York, with Naef’s friend and colleague, the Lebanese statesman Charles Malik, serving as his best man. After the birth of their son in 1954, the newlyweds moved to Mount Vernon, New York, a residential community in Westchester County, where they raised their two children, Naef Khoury, Jr. and Marianna Theresa. Both son and daughter recall hearing throughout their childhoods of their father’s beloved Lebanon.
In the last decade of his life, Naef Basile was blessed with the arrival of three grandchildren that he cherished: Claire Marie, Mary Josephine, and Nicholas Naef.
The Dream Begins
In 1971, Dr. Basile began to set aside funds for what was to be his most ambitious project and most lasting legacy, one that would combine his love of Lebanon and his dedication to the practice of medicine: the establishment of a medical center in Lebanon; its specific focus was yet to be determined. Throughout the years of Lebanon’s civil war in the 1970's and 80's, he never abandoned his dream. Even during those years and more so after the war ended in 1990, he traveled often to Lebanon to consult with Lebanese medical professionals and leaders in government and society.
Dr. Basile decided that his gift to his homeland should be a comprehensive cancer center for the treatment of cancer in all its manifestations. He intended to establish a "world-class" center, equal to the best in the United States and Europe, that would serve patients throughout the region of the Middle East. He envisioned that it would be a place where those in Lebanon and neighboring countries who were unable travel abroad could receive the highest quality of cancer treatment available in the world, as well as an institute for advanced cancer research and education.
With the invaluable assistance of family members in Lebanon, Naef Basile continued to develop his plan and to investigate potential locations for the cancer center. He himself was diagnosed with cancer in 1993, but continued many of his activities, including planning for the cancer center, until early in 1995. Naef Khoury Basile died 25 October 1995, at the age of 83, having been unable to personally bring this gift, his dream for a quarter century, to his beloved homeland.
But the dream did not end there.
See how it was fulfilled: The Naef K. Basile Foundation