In 1944 he married Mary Stephanie Douglass; stepchildren Penelope Gilliatt, a writer (1932–1993), Angela Conner (1935), a sculptor, and an adopted daughter Edda Mwakeselo Ivan-Smith 1960, author and Social Development Consultant.
Later Michael Pate who began his famous career in 1938, when he joined Ivan Smith writing and broadcasting a program called Youth Speaks for ABC Radio.
A State Department employee, Lewis Hoffacker, attempted to stop the kidnapping and managed to get Ivan Smith away from his abductors by pulling him from a truck; Senator Dodd was being feted at a private home in Elizabethville at the time.
Ivan Smith was able to then contact the commander of the UN Indian forces, Colonel S. S. Maitro and who effected Urquhart's release shortly afterwards, albeit in badly beaten condition.
1965 he was nominated for the new post of secretary-general of the Commonwealth but the appointment went to his namesake Arnold Smith of Canada after severe pressure from Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies over his work in Africa.
In his retirement to Stroud, Gloucestershire he authored Ghosts of Kampala, a biography of Idi Amin and contributed numerous articles and letters to the press to include an obituary of Laurence Olivier.
He carried on constant communications with friends and associates such as Gareth Evans, Paul Keating and Rupert Murdoch and much earlier his mentor James Joyce these documents all reside at the Bodleian Library.