Ulric S. Haynes—ambassador, university president, NSC staffer, diesel-engine salesman, and literal character out of a Tom Wolfe story—died of #COVID19 last week at the age of 89.

He was a friend and mentor to me and many others, and he is greatly missed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulric_Haynes

Haynes served as ambassador to Algeria in the 70s/80s, when Algeria was the intermediary in the Iran hostage crisis. This interview by @ADSTnews gives an overview of his extraordinary life: https://www.adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Haynes,%20Ulric,%20Jr.%20toc.pdf

Rick Haynes was a joyful polyglot who enjoyed watching less linguistically adept superiors make fools of themselves. One of my favorite translator anecdotes:

I was stunned, when reading Tom Wolfe’s “Radical Chic” for the first time, to find Rick Haynes (“a dapper [black] dude in a pinstripe suit and pencil mustache”) make a feisty appearance at Leonard Bernstein’s 1970 dinner benefiting the Black Panthers:

Six years after the Radical Chic dinner, he was in Algiers serving as US ambassador. He immediately turned the Algerian president’s racial gaffe into an American advantage:

Haynes cleaned house in the US embassy as well. I have often wondered whether the Foreign Service Officer mentioned here ever found out why his career tanked:

Later Haynes became a full-time educator, at @HofstraU and elsewhere. He lavished great generosity on many young people, conversing patiently when we tried out languages on him or asked if he knew anyone (of course he did) we should meet in Algiers, Tehran, Lilongwe, you name it.