DONALD G. MACDONALD ’43

DONALD G. MACDONALD, a top administrator of the Agency for International Development who directed the AID mission in Vietnam during the peak years of the Vietnam War, died of esophageal cancer Jan. 12, 2004, at age 82. He was a member of Chi Psi and received a master’s degree from Princeton University. During World War II he served in the U.S. Navy, after which he began his civilian federal career with a position at the Atomic Energy Commission. He then joined the Mutual Security Agency, a predecessor agency to AID and, before going to Vietnam, directed AID missions in Pakistan and Nigeria. Earlier, he had served in Turkey. He spent 1966 to 1970 in Vietnam and was injured during the Tet Offensive of early 1968, but returned to Vietnam after treatment in the U.S. In Vietnam he presided over a massive assistance program, as well as the building of schools, the establishment of health clinics, and the start-up of industries. He also served as assistant AID administrator for Asia. Less than a year after retiring, he was called back into service after the fall of Saigon in 1975 to direct the resettlement of almost 50,000 Vietnamese refugees at Fort Chaffee, Ark., whom he helped locate to various places across the U.S. in less than eight months. His first wife, Barbara McCloskey MacDonald, died. Survivors include his wife, Marcia A. Wiss; three children from his first marriage; two children from his second marriage; and seven grandchildren.