Daniel O'Donohue

(October 27, 1931 to May 16, 2019)

Ambassador Daniel Anthony O’Donohue died at 7:30 AM on 16 May at home in Alexandria, Virginia, attended by his loving wife and family. In death, he shared the same inspiring faith, love, strength, and self-sacrificing service that defined his life.

Ambassador O’Donohue, the son of Irish immigrants, served as the United States Ambassador to Thailand and Burma and completed his almost four-decade career as a Career Minister. He also served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asian Affairs. Other duties included Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Politico-Military Affairs and Director of the Office of Korean Affairs. Overseas posts included an earlier tour in Thailand as Deputy Chief of Mission and tours in Korea and Ghana as Political Section Chief. His first post was Genoa as Vice Counsel. Ambassador O’Donohue was a Diplomat in Residence at Howard University.

After retirement in 1995, he served as a Senior Foreign Service Inspector, leading inspections of thirty U.S. Diplomatic Missions. Additionally, he served as the President of Diplomatic and Consular Officers Retired (DACOR). He was active in Queen of Apostles Catholic Church to include the promotion of vocations. He was a devoted husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather.

As a young man, Ambassador O’Donohue worked his way through Detroit’s Catholic Central High School and the University of Detroit. After Army service in the Korean War, he completed graduate studies at Wayne State University and served as a Michigan State civil servant. At the urging of a friend, and on a whim, he took the Foreign Service exam. He knew nothing of the Foreign Service except as an opportunity to see the world. He seized it.

During his first assignment, his fiancée, Mary Gertrude Miney, and his sister Margaret, sailed to Italy for their wedding. Ambassador O’Donohue had decided, with all the attendant risk, on a small, local chapel in Genoa that lacked any experience with foreigners. Sure enough, a voluble parish priest stopped the ceremony mid-stride, declaring that he could not accept Americans as official witnesses. This was the first of many adventures that would distinguish his and Mary’s six-decade romance.

Of the many world events he influenced during his 40 years of service to his country, he considered most dramatic the rise of democracy and a market economy in war-torn Korea. His Army experience inspired him to return to Korea, at first opportunity, to make a difference at an historic inflection point for an important and enduring ally. Korea and East Asia were his professional passions.

Ambassador O’Donohue was born on 27 October 1931 in Detroit, Michigan to Daniel Joseph and Mary Ann (née Keating) O’Donohue, both of Ireland. Ambassador O’Donohue was devoted to his family and is survived by his wife of sixty years, Mary Gertrude O’Donohue (née Miney); his five children, Dan (Kathleen), Joan (Doug) McCuistion, Father John, Thomas (Lorrie), and Michael (Lynn); fourteen grandchildren; five-great grandchildren; and his siblings, Margaret Whitehead, Joan Buchanan and Gerald (Jeanne).

He will be buried in the Diplomatic and Consular Officers Retired (DACOR) Section of the historic Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington DC. Every Memorial Day, honors are rendered there to our nation’s Foreign Service Officers.