John O'Leary (ambassador)

John O'Leary (January 16, 1947 – April 2, 2005) served as mayor of Portland, Maine, and as United States ambassador to Chile under President Bill Clinton.

Personal life

O'Leary was born in Portland and graduated from Yale University in 1969. He later attended Clare College, Cambridge University, on a Mellon fellowship and received a master's degree in 1971. He received a degree from Yale Law School in 1974. While studying at Yale Law, O'Leary acted as a coach for the Yale debate team. He then went on to a private law practice.

O'Leary married a fellow Yale student, Patricia Cepeda, the daughter of Colombian writer Álvaro Cepeda Samudio, a friend of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Colombian Nobel Prize-winning novelist, journalist and short story writer, for whom Patricia Cepeda O'Leary worked as a translator.^[1] John and Patricia O'Leary had two daughters, the eldest of whom is the goddaughter of Marquez. The O'Learys endowed the John O'Leary and Patricia Cepeda Fellowship for the Study of Latin America at Yale College.

Political career

He served as a member of the Portland City Council and for a term as that city's Mayor. He ran unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. House from Maine's First Congressional District in 1982, losing in the Democratic primary.

References

Sources

• Holley, Joe (2005-04-03). "John O'Leary Dies; Mayor, Ambassador to Chile". The Washington Post. p. C08. Retrieved 2007-08-22. 

External links

• "John O'Leary: Working towards justice for Pinochet's victims" David Sugarman, The Guardian, 20 May 2005
• "Tale of Two Ambassadors: One exposed the death squads, the other covered them up" Marc Cooper, LA Weekly, 14 April 2005
• "Nomination of John O'Leary to be United States Ambassador to Chile" Olympia Snow, Congressional Record, 26 June 1998
• John O'Leary Papers Georgetown University

Ambassadors of the United States to Chile
Heman Allen Samuel Larned John Hamm John S. Pendleton William Crump Seth Barton Balie Peyton David A. Starkweather John Bigler Thomas H. Nelson Hugh Judson Kilpatrick Joseph Pomeroy Root Cornelius A. Logan Thomas A. Osborn Hugh Judson Kilpatrick Cornelius A. Logan William R. Roberts Patrick Egan James D. Porter Edward Henry Strobel Henry Lane Wilson John Hicks Thomas Cleland Dawson Henry P. Fletcher Joseph H. Shea William Miller Collier William Smith Culbertson Hal H. Sevier Hoffman Philip Norman Armour Claude G. Bowers Willard L. Beaulac Cecil B. Lyon Walter Howe Robert F. Woodward Charles W. Cole Ralph A. Dungan Edward M. Korry Nathaniel Davis David H. Popper George W. Landau James D. Theberge Harry G. Barnes Jr. Charles A. Gillespie Jr. Curtis Warren Kamman Gabriel Guerra-Mondragón John O'Leary William R. Brownfield Craig A. Kelly Paul E. Simons Alejandro Daniel Wolff Michael A. Hammer