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Kenneth Bacon, as Pentagon spokesman, discussed the situation in Kosovo as he pointed to a map of the region. (AP/File 1999) |
Kenneth Bacon; journalist became advocate for refugees
WASHINGTON - Kenneth H. Bacon, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who was top spokesman at the Pentagon during the Clinton administration and later became a prominent advocate on behalf of international refugees, died yesterday of melanoma at his vacation home on Block Island, R.I. He was 64.
His primary residence was in Washington. Mr. Bacon had spent 25 years at the Journal’s Washington bureau before becoming chief spokesman at the Pentagon in 1994, working under Defense Secretary William Perry. Mr. Bacon held the position of assistant secretary of defense for public affairs and remained in the post when William Cohen was named defense secretary in 1996.
In daily briefings, Mr. Bacon kept reporters informed of developments in civil wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, and other military matters. He was known for his bow ties and his cultivated, straight-arrow manner.
On a visit to the Balkans in 1999, Mr. Bacon saw firsthand the human toll of warfare, as hundreds of thousands of people were driven from their homes.
“I had never seen refugees before, never fully appreciated the sheer magnitude of 1 million people leaving their homes and needing food, shelter, and medical care,’’ he told The New York Times in 2001.
After leaving the Pentagon in 2001, Mr. Bacon became president of the Washington-based advocacy group Refugees International and emerged as one of the strongest voices for the dispossessed around the globe. His organization, which accepts no funding from governments or the United Nations, estimates that there are currently 12 million international refugees.
Mr. Bacon was among the first people to draw attention to the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan, and he helped bring to light the problems facing millions of refugees from the war in Iraq. He was instrumental in finding sanctuary for displaced Iraqis in Middle Eastern countries and lobbied for greater numbers of Iraqi refugees to be admitted to the United States. Between 2006 and 2008, the State Department increased funding for Iraqi refugees from $43 million to $398 million.
“The US cannot afford to win the military battle and lose the humanitarian campaign,’’ Mr. Bacon said.
He visited refugee camps from Afghanistan to Somalia, from Colombia to Cambodia, and often wrote articles or appeared on television to discuss humanitarian concerns.
“I’ve seen him in action in Sudan,’’ New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote in his blog last week, “and he combines passion with intricate knowledge of policy to make a difference.’’
Kenneth Hogate Bacon was born in Bronxville, N.Y., and was a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. His father was an administrator at Amherst College in Massachusetts, from which Mr. Bacon graduated in 1966. He received dual master’s degrees, in business administration and journalism, from Columbia University.
After working as a legislative assistant to US Senator Thomas McIntyre of New Hampshire, Mr. Bacon joined the Washington bureau of the Wall Street Journal in 1969. He covered banking, economics, education. and international finance and was the paper’s Pentagon correspondent from 1976 to 1980.
Mr. Bacon leaves his wife of 43 years, Darcy Wheeler Bacon of Washington and Block Island; two daughters, Katharine of Brookline, Mass., and Sarah of Brooklyn, N.Y.; his father, Theodore of Peterborough, N.H.; a brother; and two grandchildren.
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