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Orison Rudolph Aggrey

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O. Rudolph Aggrey
United States Ambassador to Romania
In office
November 22, 1977 – July 11, 1981
PresidentJimmy Carter
Ronald Reagan
Preceded byHarry George Barnes Jr.
Succeeded byDavid B. Funderburk
United States Ambassador to Senegal
In office
January 17, 1974 – July 10, 1977
PresidentRichard Nixon
Gerald Ford
Jimmy Carter
Preceded byGilbert Edward Clark
Succeeded byHerman Jay Cohen
United States Ambassador to The Gambia
In office
January 17, 1974 – July 10, 1977
PresidentRichard Nixon
Gerald Ford
Jimmy Carter
Preceded byGilbert Edward Clark
Succeeded byHerman Jay Cohen
Personal details
Born
Orison Rudolph Aggrey

(1926-07-24)July 24, 1926
Salisbury, North Carolina, U.S.
DiedApril 6, 2016(2016-04-06) (aged 89)
Alexandria, Virginia, U.S.
SpouseFrançoise Christiane Fratacci
Children1
Alma materHampton University
Syracuse University

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.[1]

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.[2]

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).

Diplomatic posts
Preceded by U.S. Ambassador to Gambia
1973 – 1977
Succeeded by
Preceded by U.S. Ambassador to Senegal
1973 – 1977
Succeeded by
Preceded by U.S. Ambassador to Romania
1977 – 1981
Succeeded by

References

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  1. ^ "The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project Information Series AMBASSADOR RUDOLPH AGGREY" (PDF). Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. 13 July 1990. Archived (PDF) from the original on 15 July 2024. Retrieved 15 July 2024.
  2. ^ "Tribute for O. Rudolph Aggrey".
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