 My father, Randolf Laughlin Marshall, died early on the morning of December Sixth, Two Thousand, of natural causes. He was in the Shady Grove Adventist Hospital, in Rockville, MD. when he died.
Mike (as he was always called) was born in Berkeley, California on May 18, 1921 and grew up in Walnut Creek, California, one of four children of Emory M. and Helen Laughlin Marshall. He attended public schools, was an Eagle scout, and won a scholarship to Harvard College. He rowed on the Harvard crew, was a member of the A.D. Club, and graduated with a B.S. in English History and Literature in 1942.
After college, he enlisted in the Army, married Anne Delano Grant of Boston, and served with the Tank Destroyers of the U.S. Army Ground Forces in Europe. As a First Lieutenant, he led his platoon onto Omaha Beach in Normandy four days into the D-Day invasion. They fought their way across France and Belgium and took part in the final invasion of Germany. Mike was wounded twice and decorated with the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star, and the Silver Star. He was being trained for the invasion of Japan when the final surrender was signed in 1945.
Following the war, Mike attended Harvard Law School under the G.I. Bill, was awarded an LL.B. in 1948, and practiced law with Pillsbury,
Madison & Sutro in San Francisco. He had dreamed of a career in politics, but a different form of public service beckoned at a time when many Americans were alarmed by the actions of the Soviet Union and the increasingly menacing Cold War. Beginning in 1952, he served with the Central Intelligence Agency, with postings in Munich, Washington D.C., London and Nigeria.
In the course of his work in Nigeria, Mike became fascinated with the issues of developing nations. Increasingly, he found his cover work more engaging and important than his intelligence-gathering. In addition, he had disagreements with U.S. policy in Africa and Vietnam. In 1967, he left the C.I.A. to devote his full energies to development work.
In his twelve years in Africa, Mike made significant contributions in the area of public administration. He founded the the Institute of Public Administration at the University
of Ife in Nigeria. When he moved to Morocco, he worked with the Prime Minister's office on civil service reform. In Uganda, during the difficult early years of Idi Amin, he worked to strengthen civil service training. He also undertook assignments in Zaire (Now Congo), Liberia and Indonesia. He returned to the United States in 1973 and continued to work with the Ford Foundation and the Institute for Public Administration until his retirement.
(That's Me, Lookin' at You.) Mike is survived by Sheila Marshall, his wife of 39 years, their children Christopher Marshall, of Long Island, New York (That's me) and Anthony Marshall of Sacramento, California; his first wife, Anne Hollingsworth of Massachusetts and their three children: Katherine Marshall of Washington D.C., Kim Marshall of Brookline, Massachusetts, and Laura Marshall of Boulder, Colorado; his brother Emory (Pete) Marshall; and four grandchildren: Laura Blinkhorn, Patrick Blinkhorn, Lillie Marshall and David Marshall. |
