Robert Fred Ellsworth (June 11, 1926 – May 9, 2011) was an American legislator and diplomat. He served as the

United States Permanent Representative to NATO The United States Permanent Representative to NATO (commonly called the U.S. Ambassador to NATO) is the official representative of the United States to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The Representative has the rank of full ambassador ...

(an ambassadorial-level appointment) between 1969 and 1971. He had previously served three terms as a Republican Member of Congress from

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to th ...

, from 1961 to 1967, and as an Assistant to the President during the presidency of

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...

; under President Gerald Ford, he was Deputy Secretary of Defense. Ellsworth also served as assistant to the chairman of the Federal Maritime Commission. Ellsworth was born in Lawrence, Kansas, and was educated in the public schools of that city. He served in the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

and the

Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...

. In 1945, he was graduated with a

baccalaureate Baccalaureate may refer to: * ''Baccalauréat'', a French national academic qualification * Bachelor's degree, or baccalaureate, an undergraduate academic degree * English Baccalaureate, a performance measure to assess secondary schools in England ...

in engineering from the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. T ...

, where he had been a member of the Alpha Nu chapter of the Beta Theta Pi collegiate fraternity. He then studied law at the

University of Michigan Law School The University of Michigan Law School (Michigan Law) is the law school of the University of Michigan, a public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Founded in 1859, the school offers Master of Laws (LLM), Master of Comparative Law (MCL ...

, from which he was graduated in 1949; he practiced law in Lawrence, Kansas, and in Springfield, Massachusetts. The retired ambassador was admitted to the

Order of Saint John The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem ( la, Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani), commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), was a medieval and early modern Catholic military order. It was headq ...

as a knight of honor in 1995. On November 9, 2010, Ellsworth provided commentary to KFMB regarding an unexplained missile launch off the coast of Los Angeles. He cautioned the news crew to wait for definitive answers from the military, then went on to speculate, "It could be a test firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile from a submarine, an underwater submarine, to demonstrate, mainly to Asia, that we could do that." Ellsworth died in

Encinitas, California Encinitas ( Spanish for "Small Oaks") is a beach city in the North County area of San Diego County, California. Located within Southern California, it is approximately north of San Diego, between Solana Beach and Carlsbad, and about south ...

: near the small city of

Solana Beach Solana Beach (''Solana'', Spanish for "warm wind") is a coastal city in San Diego County, California. Its population was at 12,941 at the 2020 U.S. Census, up from 12,867 at the 2010 Census. History The area was first settled by the San Dieg ...

, where he had founded and directed a research firm, Hamilton BioVentures..

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Retrieved on 2008-03-31 * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ellsworth, Robert 1926 births 2011 deaths Politicians from Lawrence, Kansas Military personnel from Kansas United States presidential advisors Permanent Representatives of the United States to NATO Massachusetts lawyers Kansas lawyers United States Navy officers University of Kansas alumni University of Michigan Law School alumni Nixon administration personnel Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Kansas 20th-century American politicians United States Deputy Secretaries of Defense