Tom Coburn (age 72) - Coburn, a physician, was a three-term congressman and two-term U. S. Senator from Oklahoma; all as a Republican. Well known as a hard-line social and fiscal conservative, Coburn earned the sobriquet "Dr. No" for his sometimes unpopular stand on spending. A strong supporter of term limits, Coburn resigned in 2014 before completing his second term, ostensibly because of declining health. Affter leaving government, he worked with conservative activist groups. Coburn succumbed to prostate cancer on March 28, 2020.
Amadou Gon Coulibaly (age 61) - Coulibaly was the sitting Prime Minister of Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire) at the time of his death, a position he had held since being chosen in 2017. At the time of his death, he was front-runner in his country's 2020 presidential election. He had previously served as secretary general in the administration of the previous President, Alassane Ouattara. Coulibaly, who had undergone heart surgery in 2012, became ill and died July 8, 2020.
John A. Gordon (age 73) - Gordon served in the U. S. Air Force from 1968 to 2000, rising to the rank of General. He retired to take the position of Deputy Director of the CIA under George W. Bush,. He also held the positions of head of the Nuclear Security Administration, Deputy NSA Advisor, and Homeland Security Advisor. General Gordon died April 19, 2020.
Jane Hull (age 84) - Hull was an Arizona teacher turned politician, first elected as a state representative in 1978. In 1997 Hull assumed the governorship of the state upon the resignation of Fife Symington when the latter was convicted of fraud. Hull, at the time the Secretary of State, served out his term and was re-elected in 1998. Hull passed away April 16, 2020.
Sam Johnson (age 89) - Johnson spent almost thirty years in the U. S. House as a Republican congressman from the Dallas area in Texas. He had been an Air Force pilot in both the Korean and Vietnam Wars. IN the second, he was captured by the North Vietnamese and held in the notorious Hanoi Hilton. Johnson retired after being re-elected in 2018. He died May 27, 2020.
Ron Marlenee (age 84) - Marlenee, a Republican, was an eight-term Congressman from his native Montana. The rancher served in the House from 1977 until being ousted when forced to run against a sitting Democrat after the state lost one of its two seats in the House. Marlenee, dubbed one of the House's "Dirty Dozen" for his voting record on environmental legislation, died April 26, 2020.
Daniel arap Moi (age 95) - Moi was the second president of Kenya, following Jomo Kenyatta in 1978 and serving until being forced out of office in 2002. Although relatively stable, Moi's administration, like most administrations, was marked by corruption and graft, one reason that he was banned from running again in 2002. He died in Nairobi on February 4, 2020.
Mike Moore (age 71) - Moore was briefly the Prime Minister of New Zealand, filling in for 59 days in 1990. He retired from politics after reaching that pinnacle, after which he was the Director General of the WTO for three years and v=served as the New Zealand Ambassador to the USA from 2010 to 2015. Moore died February 2, 2020.
Hosni Mubarak (age 91) - Mubarak assumed the presidency in Egypt following the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981, holding that office continuously until he was deposed during the Arab Spring uprising in 2011. After leaving office, he was tried and sentenced to prison for the killing of protesters, a sentence that was nullified in a retrial. Mubrarak, visibly ill during his second trial, perished on February 25, 2020.
Paul O'Neill (age 84) - O'Neill was a businessman, at one time the CEO of Alcoa (Aluminum Corporation of America) and chair of the think tank RAND Corporation. He was tapped by the administration of George W. Bush to be Secretary of the Treasury, a position he held from January, 2001, to December, 2002. He was fired, allegedly for disagreeing with the invasion of Iraq, among other issues. O'Neill succumbed to lung cancer on April 18, 2020.
Javier Pérez de Cuéllar (age 100) - The Peruvian Pérez de Cuéllar was a politician and diplomat vaulted to the position of Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1982, serving a two five-year terms as the fifth to hold the office. Back home in Peru, he ran unsuccessfully for national president in 1995 before rising to Prime Minister of the country in 2000. He received the Freedom Medal in 1992 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991. Pérez de Cuéllar died March 4, 2020.
Qaboos bin Said Al Said (age 79) - The Sultan of Oman for almost 50 years, Qaboos assumed the position at a time when Oman little more than was a backwater state on the Persian Gulf. Though absolute ruler of his country, he was judged to be a benevolent despot and helped bring Oman into the modern world by leveraging the country's petroleum resources. He died January 10, 2020, leaving no direct heir.
John Sears (age 79) - Sears was a Republican political strategist even before the days when they were called "spin doctors." He worked on political campaigns for Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, and was Nixon's Deputy Counsel before Watergate. In the '80s, Sears served as a lobbyist for the apartheid regime in South Africa. At one point he was misidentified as "deep throat," the source for the Washington Post exposé of the Nixon administration. Sears died March 26, 2020, of a heart attack.
Jay Severin (age 69) - Severin parlayed a twenty-year career as a Republican political consultant into a gig as a conservative AM radio talk-show host on Boston and New York stations. He was fired in Boston for a history racist statements about Muslims and Latinos and sexual innuendo about co-workers. He later spent four years as a commentator on Glenn Beck's "The Blaze" network. Severin died July 7, 2020, after a massive stroke.
Jean Kennedy Smith (age 92) - Smith, youngest sister of President John F. Kennedy, was a humanitarian and philanthropist. She founded Very Special Arts, an international non-profit supporting the differently abled. In 1993, President Clinton appointed her U. S. Ambassador to Ireland, where she was instrumental in the peace process in Northern Ireland. President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011. Smith died June 17, 2020.
Pete Stark (age 88) - Stark, a banker by trade, was a Democratic U. S. Representative from California for twenty terms, lasting from 1973 to 2013. He was the only admitted atheist in Congress at the time of his retirement. He was known as a moderate, speaking out against the Iraq war and occasionally bucking the party bosses in the days when Congressmen still did that. Stark died January 24, 2020.
Clayton Williams (age 90) - Williams, a Midland, Texas businessman, narrowly lost the 1990 Texas gubernatorial race to Ann Richards, thereby becoming the last Republican to lose a statewide race in the state. The oilman retired from politics after that loss, which many pundits blamed on his tone-deaf jokes and speeches. Williams died February 14, 2020.
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