New York (AP)-Reid G. Miller, who traveled on the planet as an fearless international correspondent for The Associated Press and developed as a supportive editor and unshakable boss during the hardest moments of the Breaking news. He was 90.
Miller died early Thursday in his sleep in his house in Sarasota, Florida, where he fought a heart failure, his son G. Clay Miller from Brookly, New York.
In his 43-year-old AP career, he tied witnesses and reported on some of the most significant and sometimes most violent events in the late 20th century, East Africa to South Korea. On the way he survived a fatal explosion in Nicaragua, covered the genocide in Rwanda and directed the release of a kidnapped colleague in war -friendly Somalia.
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“He loved the feeling of adventure – living abroad, reporting moments in history,” said Clay Miller.
Miller, born in Medford, Massachusetts, began in early 20 at AP with a part-time job in Phoenix 1956. -Tofball teams and helped to increase a generation of reporters.
“Reid hugged me because he has all arrived dc ap add-on,” said Merrill Hartson, a long-time friend and colleague. “I found a man whose sense of humor was Johnny Carsons, whose firm and somewhat star rugged and intimidating. “
After Washington, Miller went to Central America in the 1980s to excite the correspondent – a time when regional FlareUps and US interventions made the area a dangerous place that could be reported from.
On May 30, 1984, Miller and a group of reporters in southern Nicaragua, who interviewed the counter -revolutionary Eden Pastora, known as “Commander Zero”, started when a bomb started in the middle. Miller was seriously wounded and four of Pastora’s men and three journalists were killed, including Linda Frazier, the wife of the AP colleague of Miller, Joseph B. Frazier. No culprit has ever been found.
A day later, Miller from a hospital in nearby Costa Rica submitted a shipping of the first person via the bomb attacks.
“I have … tried to get my bandwriter up and running. It got wet during the boat trip. I had just given up the cassette recorder and started to step into the narrow circle to take notes when there was a dazzling explosion that hit me about 10 feet back into a wall. … I crawled into an adjacent room and was on the open front of the building. I slipped a 2-time 4 clip onto the floor and then rolled into a flat slot ditch that had been dug nearby. “
Miller recovered and returned to the field. Three years later, he was invited to take part in military exercises with the Nicaraguan rebels supported by the United States, which are known as contras. This was his Sardonian assessment: “After reporting a few days with a real war and a few further war war against a real war, I can tell you the following: I preferred the sham war. It was more exciting. And the food was better. “
After Central America, Miller was appointed AP Bureau Chief for East Africa in Nairobi. From there he would cover one of the most shaken events of his career – the genocide in Rwanda in Rwanda. Miller led the negotiations to secure her release and she was freed after 20 shocking days.
“In contrast to many older and much more experienced correspondents, Reid never felt like an outsider or like someone who did not deserve the right to report the greatest stories in the world,” said Susman on Thursday. “At the time I was one of the few reporters in the scene. But for Reid I was a colleague who deserved as much respect and collegiality as everyone else. “
Miller ended his career as head of the South Korea office of News Cooperative in Seoul. When he retired in 1999, he left dozens of journalists who were scattered about AP and remembered him as someone who, while bringing the news for the world back, promoted career to three continents.
“Reid Miller was the boss whom everyone loved -and the boss whom many AP employees wanted it to be,” said Edith M. Lederer, now the agency’s chief correspondent. “He had the amazing gift to carefully listen to everyone, to convey what he wanted to do, never to raise his voice, to be very encouraging in difficult situations and to send praise for great stories.”
“He somehow set up an Esprit de Corps among us that continues to this day,” wrote friend and former colleague Marty Merzer after reunification of AP Florida employees in 2020.
In addition to his son Clay, Reid Miller is survived by his wife, the former AP -Pentagon reporter Pauline Jelinek. A daughter, Kimberly Matalon from Miami; another son, Reid G. Miller from Gainesville, Florida; Three grandchildren and five great -grandchildren. A brother is also survived, Randall Humpling from Barstow, California.
A few years ago, Miller wrote a profile of his own career for connecting, a newsletter written by and for former AP employees. His play ended with a emphatic statement from him, and this one too:
“Would I do it again? In a heartbeat. “