THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, April 9, 1996 TAG: 9604090336
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES
LENGTH: Short : 37 lines
Robert Anderson, a career Foreign Service officer best known as Henry A. Kissinger's spokesman on marathon diplomatic shuttles during the 1970s, died last Friday at Fairfax Hospital in Virginia.
He was 74 and lived in the Georgetown section of Washington.
The cause was congestive heart failure, his family said.
Anderson, who served as the U.S. ambassador in three countries, was born in Boston and graduated from Yale University in 1944. After wartime service as a first lieutenant in the Army he began his diplomatic career in 1946, posted to Shanghai as a vice consul.
His career then took him to Bangkok, New Delhi, and back to Washington as an international relations officer and staff assistant to the assistant secretary for public affairs. That assignment prepared him for the delicate and hectic work on the Middle East shuttle.
He served as a political officer in Bordeaux and special assistant to the ambassador in Paris. By 1972, he was headed for his first ambassadorial appointment in Dahomey, West Africa, now known as Benin.
From 1978 to 1982, he was attached as a special assistant for international affairs to the U.S. commander-in-chief, Atlantic, in Norfolk, Va.
He retired in 1985 as ambassador to the Dominican Republic, his final assignment.
Since then, he worked as a consultant advising American companies on their international dealings. by CNB