Washington was one of my three roommates my junior year in Quincy House at Harvard College (1960-61), when I was nineteen years old. I met both his wife and his British sponsor--a head of education--from Kenya during that academic year. Washington, in turn, knew my future wife, a regular visitor to our suite in Quincy 312 and he was inevitably courteous to "Miss Stephanie." (Our roommates Milton Anastos and Ron Quinn were also very kindly towards this honorary fifth roommate from Lesley College, whom I'd met through Milt, who arranged a post-HarvardYale game party for this purpose and in honor of his government teacher and our guest Henry Kissinger.) We heard from Washington of Tom Mboya, his relative/uncle, and as President of the African Students Association he received a telegram from Egypt's leader Gamal Nasser. Decades later I heard of Washington on the news about the negotiations that were creating the new South Africa, and I once met a Harvard admissions officer who had followed Washington's career in Kenya with attention (something about an office in transportation?). These traces naturally fascinated a former roommate, who knew from of old that Washington was an innately noble human being, with great dignity, presence, and kindness. At our graduation from college in May 1962 it was announced that he was being appointed the new state's ambassador to the United Nations. I do not know if this was accurate, but it sounded entirely believable to me. I remember him fondly. —And I always shall.
