Orison Rudolph Aggrey
Orison Rudolph Aggrey (July 24, 1926 – April 6, 2016) was an American diplomat who served as the United States Ambassador to Senegal, Gambia, and Romania.
O. Rudolph Aggrey | |
|---|---|
| United States Ambassador to Romania | |
| In office November 22, 1977 – July 11, 1981 | |
| President | Jimmy Carter Ronald Reagan |
| Preceded by | Harry George Barnes Jr. |
| Succeeded by | David B. Funderburk |
| United States Ambassador to Senegal | |
| In office January 17, 1974 – July 10, 1977 | |
| President | Richard Nixon Gerald Ford Jimmy Carter |
| Preceded by | Gilbert Edward Clark |
| Succeeded by | Herman Jay Cohen |
| United States Ambassador to The Gambia | |
| In office January 17, 1974 – July 10, 1977 | |
| President | Richard Nixon Gerald Ford Jimmy Carter |
| Preceded by | Gilbert Edward Clark |
| Succeeded by | Herman Jay Cohen |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Orison Rudolph Aggrey July 24, 1926 Salisbury, North Carolina, U.S. |
| Died | April 6, 2016 (aged 89) Alexandria, Virginia, U.S. |
| Spouse | Françoise Christiane Fratacci |
| Children | 1 |
| Alma mater | Hampton University Syracuse University |
Aggrey was born in 1926 in Salisbury, North Carolina as the youngest of four children to Dr. James Emman Kwegyir Aggrey, an immigrant from the Gold Coast and later the co-Founder of Achimota School, and Rosebud Aggrey (née Douglass). He died in April 2016 at the age of 89.[1]
He graduated in 1946 from Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) and received his master's degree from Syracuse University in 1948.
In 1977, President Jimmy Carter nominated Aggrey to be Ambassador Extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the U.S. to Romania. In Bucharest, he met Nobel Prize winning author Saul Bellow in December 1978 who asked for assistance in dealing with Romanian red-tape his Romanian-born wife, Alexandra Bellow, was experiencing while visiting her very ill mother in a Romanian hospital. Bellow portrayed Aggrey in chapter four of his novel The Dean's December, published in 1982, describing the ambassador as "discreet, soft-spoken, almost gentle, mysteriously earnest, handsome black man" (p. 58).