NEW YORK – Reid G. Miller travels the planet as a brave international correspondent for the Associated Press, building a reputation as a cooperative editor and an incredibly loyal boss in the most harsh news moments. He was 90 years old.
Miller died of sleep early Thursday at his home in Sarasota, Florida, where he was battling congestive heart failure, said his son, G. Clay Miller of Brooklyn, New York.
In his 43-year Associated Press career, he testified and reported on the most important and sometimes most violent events of the late 20th century – from Washington to Central America, East Africa and South Korea. Along the way, he survived a deadly explosion in Nicaragua, veiled the release of a colleague lured in war-torn Somalia, engulfing Rwandan genocide.
“He loved the sense of adventure. He lives abroad and covers historical moments,” Clay Miller said.
Miller, originally from Medford, Massachusetts, started in 1956 with the Associated Press in his early 20s in Phoenix. The Bureau Chief was the mainstay of the station’s softball team and helped to nurture a generation of reporters.
“Reid hugged me, just like he’s all arrived at the new DC AP add-on,” said longtime friend and colleague Merrill Hartson. “I found a man whose sense of humor was Johnny Carson’s man. The stolen, somewhat harsh commitment to performances sometimes evokes the idea of General George Patton, and such a volatile and summons. The correct, and Alphaman composing was often reassuring and comforting: gross and intimidating.”
After Washington, Miller went to Central America for most of the 1980s to head to Central America. This is a time when local flare-ups and US intervention made the area a dangerous place.
On May 30, 1984, Miller and a group of reporters interviewed the counter-innovative Eden Pastra known as “Commander Zero” when the bomb went out. . Miller was severely injured, killing four and three journalists of Pastra men. This includes Linda Frazier, wife of Miller’s Associated Press colleague Joseph B. Frazier. The perpetrator was not found.
A day later, from a nearby Costa Rica hospital, Miller submitted a first-person dispatch on the bombing.
“I was… trying to get the tape recorder to work. I was on a boat and was wet. I had just given up on the tape recorder and there was a blind explosion that knocked me down on a wall of about 10 feet. When I got there, I started walking into a tight circle. …I found myself raw into an adjacent room and in the open front of the building. I put 2 x 4 braces on the ground. I slid it into the trench and rolled into a shallow slit trench that was dug nearby.”
Miller recovered and returned to the field. Three years later, he was invited to participate in a military exercise with the US-backed rebels in Nicaragua, known as Contra. This was his third-ick review. “I’ve been able to tell you this because I’ve recently spent a few days covering real wars and covering more than that. I liked mock wars. More exciting And the food was even better.”
After Central America, Miller was appointed Director of the Associated Press for East Africa, based in Nairobi. From there he covered one of the most tragic events of his career, the 1994 Rwanda genocide. He also covered the increase in hunger in Somalia and post-clan war social disruption. There, his colleague, Tina Sussman, was invited in 1994. Miller led the negotiations to secure her release and was released 20 days later.
“Unlike many older, far more experienced correspondents, Reed feels like an outsider or someone who didn’t get the right to cover the world’s biggest story. I didn’t let him,” Susuman said Thursday. “I was one of the few female reporters on the scene at the time. But for Reed, I was just as respected and worthy of co-workers as anyone.”
Miller has concluded his career as director of the Seoul-based news cooperative. When he retired in 1999, he remembered him as someone who had left dozens of journalists scattered across the Associated Press and nurtured a career on three continents while regaining world news.
“Reed Miller was the boss everyone loved, the boss that many AP staff wanted,” said Edith M. Lederer, now the agency’s Chief UN correspondent. “He has the great gift of listening carefully to everyone, understanding what he wants to do, not speaking up, being extremely encouraging in difficult situations, and sending praise for a great story. It was there.”
“He somehow founded Esprit de Corps between us, which continues to this day,” said Marty Marzer, a friend and former colleague of the 2020 Associated Press Florida staff reunion. I’ll write it later.
In addition to his son Clay, Reed Miller was survived by his wife, former AP Pentagon reporter Pauline Jerineck. daughter, Kimberly Matalon of Miami; another son, Reed G. Miller of Gainesville, Florida; Three grandchildren and five great grandchildren. Also surviving are brothers Randall Hampling of Burstow, California.
A few years ago, Miller wrote a profile of his own career for Connecting, a newsletter written by former Associated Press staff. His work ended with an emphasised statement from him, and so is this:
“Would you like to try again? With a heartbeat.”
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