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Trump Campaign

Mike Christy

Richard L. Homan, a Washington Post journalist for 37 years who distinguished himself covering Maryland politics and later was a foreign desk editor specializing in Middle East and Central European affairs, died Nov. 29 at a retirement home in Green Valley, Arizona. He was 88.

The cause was complications from dementia, said his son Timothy.

Mr. Homan’s reporting from Annapolis on a proposed new state constitution earned an American Political Science Association award in 1968 for excellence in public affairs journalism. That same year, he was assigned to write about Richard M. Nixon’s gaffe-prone presidential running mate, Maryland Gov. Spiro T. Agnew.

On a campaign plane ride, Mr. Homan overheard Agnew jokingly greet an Asian American reporter from the Baltimore Sun with an anti-Japanese slur — a comment that became national news after Mr. Homan noted it in a story.

The ensuing outcry — including criticism on the House floor by Rep. Spark Matsunaga, the Hawaii Democrat — brought attention to Agnew’s use of derogatory language toward ethnic and racial groups. Agnew, the son of a Greek immigrant, apologized while also decrying a decline in the American “sense of humor.”

After a stint on the national desk, Mr. Homan went on leave from 1971 to 1974 and moved to Vienna for his wife’s job as an editor with the CIA’s Foreign Broadcast Information Service. Having freelanced from Eastern Europe, he returned to The Post as an assistant foreign editor and remained in that position until he retired in 1999.

“Dick was the epitome of calm during a storm,” said Karen DeYoung, a former Post foreign editor who is now the paper’s associate editor and senior national security correspondent. “No matter what the story was and how fast something needed to be put together — from Iran’s release of U.S. hostages on the day of Ronald Reagan’s inauguration to war in Lebanon — Dick was the person to turn to.”

Among colleagues, Mr. Homan was also known for his sly humor.

A Post tribute to Mr. Homan when he retired recounted the time he told an administrative aide who had suffered the brunt of an overly demanding foreign correspondent that yet another personal request had come in from the Lebanon-based reporter. The fake cable read: “Sorriest to be such a pest, but Mother’s Day is coming, May 10, and eye [I] would really would like to send mum a puppy.”

“Please, please, please feel free to tell me you have more important things to do,” the fake cable read, adding that the aide should keep in mind the reporter was “not a wealthy man, of course.” It was signed, in the telltale buttery language of the correspondent, with an abbreviated version of “Your obedient servant.”

After the aide, sometimes officious in manner, threatened to take the request to a higher level, Mr. Homan confessed.

Richard Leroy Homan — his middle name was in honor of the Hollywood child actor Baby LeRoy — was born in Pawnee City, Nebraska, on Oct. 31, 1936, and grew up in Crete, Nebraska. His father practiced internal medicine, and his mother was a registered nurse.

He graduated from St. Benedict’s College, now Benedictine College, in Atchison, Kansas, in 1958 and received a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University the next year.

He served in Army counterintelligence in Washington from 1959 to 1962, during which time he began writing sports stories part time for The Post. After his discharge, he joined the newspaper’s local news staff full time and contributed to coverage of the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Most notably, he <a href="https://tucson.com/news/washington-post-reporters-first-hand-account-of-d-c-when-jfk-died/article_d55bec04-410e-53a4-844a-6e6b4faa699a.html" target=_blank>helped confirm</a> the slain president would be buried at Arlington National Cemetery instead of in his home state of Massachusetts.

In 1969, Mr. Homan married Mary Lou Kelleher. In addition to his wife and son, survivors include another son, Peter; five sisters; a brother; and two grandsons.

Mr. Homan served on the parish council and was a lector at Catholic Church of the Little Flower in Bethesda, Maryland, his longtime city of residence before moving to Green Valley in 2005. His avocations included birding and attending opera.

“Operas should entertain,” he once <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/style/2003/09/28/opera-appetizer-a-digest-of-recipe-changes/b482281d-ce8c-4d74-98b3-5f81c2fe8349/" target=_blank>wrote</a> in The Post, noting that among his favorites were Donizetti’s “Daughter of the Regiment,” Puccini’s “La Boheme” and Wagner’s “The Flying Dutchman.” “‘Regiment’ and ‘Boheme’ may be frothy and ‘Dutchman’ may not be among Wagner’s most moving works,” he added, “but all have tunes I hear people humming as they leave the opera house.”

Society of Professional Journalists "Dateline Award," first place and finalist for feature writing, 2019

Society of Professional Journalists "Dateline Award," finalist for feature writing, 2017

American Society of Newspaper Editors, finalist for Best Obituary Writing,2005

Society for Features Journalism, second place for feature specialty writing, 2022

University of Virginia, BA

Columbia University, MA

Adam Bernstein has spent his career putting the "post" in The Washington Post, first as an obituary writer and then as editor. The American Society of Newspaper Editors recognized Bernstein’s ability to exhume “the small details and anecdotes that get at the essence of the person.” He joined The Post in 1999. 

Adam Bernstein

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