Robinson McIlvaine; Career Diplomat, African Specialist
Robinson McIlvaine, 87, a career diplomat and African affairs specialist who served as ambassador to several African nations, died Monday of complications from melanoma at his home in Washington, D.C.
McIlvaine joined the State Department in 1953 as deputy assistant secretary of state for public affairs. He served as ambassador to Guinea, Kenya and what is now Benin before retiring from the Foreign Service in 1973.
He was placed under house arrest in Conakry, Guinea, two days after arriving there as ambassador in October 1966. McIlvaine and his family were freed a day later, just hours before rioters ransacked and burned the U.S. Embassy and the ambassador’s residence.
Born in Downington, Pa., McIlvaine graduated from Harvard and commanded U.S. Navy vessels in the Pacific and Atlantic during World War II. He and his first wife, Jane Stevenson, later ran a newspaper in Downington and wrote a book about their experience, which was made into the film “It Happens Every Thursday,” starring Loretta Young and John Forsythe.
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