Robinson McIlvaine 1913 - 2001

Robinson "Rob" McIlvaine, 87, retired career diplomat, editor and conservationist, died June 24, 2001, at his home in Washington, DC.

A specialist in African affairs, McIlvaine served as Consul General in the Congo and ambassador to Dahomey (now Benin), Guinea, and Kenya. He had previously served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Lisbon, Director of the Inter-Departmental Seminar, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, and Chairman of the U.S. Section of the Caribbean Commission.

Two days after his arrival as Ambassador in Conakry, Guinea, McIlvaine and all other Americans in the country were put under house arrest by the Marxist president, Ahmed Sekou Toure, in retaliation for the kidnapping of the Guinean foreign minister from a Pan Am plane by Ghanaian authorities in Accra. The U.S. came close to breaking diplomatic relations with Guinea but in the end, after two weeks of negotiations and the help of three African foreign ministers, McIlvaine was able to resolve the controversy and get an apology from President Toure.

Retiring from the Foreign Service in 1973, McIlvaine headed the African Wildlife Leadership Foundation's (now African Wildlife Foundation) Nairobi office for two years before returning to Washington to be President of the organization until 1982. He covered ten African countries on a regular basis in a small Cessna aircraft developing and keeping track of projects. One of the most successful was the consortium he formed to protect the threatened mountain gorilla population of Rwanda.

During World War II, McIlvaine served in the U.S. Navy in Panama prior to Pearl Harbor and subsequently as commanding officer of a sub-chaser in the Guadalcanal area. Later he was captain of a destroyer escort on Atlantic convoy duty and attained the rank of Commander.

He leaves behind his wife, Alice Nicolson McIlvaine; a son, Ian McIlvaine, an architect in L.A.; a daughter, Katherine, Deputy Director of the CARE Mission in Kosovo; a son by his first wife, Stevenson McIlvaine, a Career Foreign Service officer currently stationed in Washington, and three grandchildren. A daughter by his first marriage, Mia McIlvaine Merle-Smith, was lost at sea in 1971 while trying to cross the Atlantic with her husband on a sailboat.

A service will be held: Friday, June 29 at 4:00pm St. John's Church (Georgetown) 3240 O St., N.W. Washington, D.C.