Richard Leroy Millett
American Historian and Author
Richard Leroy Millett (September 25, 1938 – December 25, 2023) was an American historian, author, policy analyst, and professor best known for his expertise on Latin America—particularly civil–military relations and Central America. Among other teaching and research roles, Millett spent 33 years on the faculty of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE), where he taught history and Latin American studies, retiring as a professor emeritus in 1999.
Early life and education
Millett was born on September 25, 1938, in Providence, Rhode Island. His parents were Clara (Denham) Millett and Leroy Franklin Millett. He spent much of his childhood in Southern California.
Undergraduate Studies
Millett attended Harvard College, where he was a member of Kirkland House, and earned an A.B. with honors in history in 1960. His senior honors thesis on United States intervention in Nicaragua marked the start of a 65-year career in Latin American history and military studies.
Millett later said that this thesis topic was suggested to him completely "out of the blue" during his junior year, and that he "didn't even know there had been an intervention in Nicaragua" at the time. Millett's research included a stint at the National Archives, after which he resolved to gain a better understanding of Latin American history and learn to speak Spanish (a language he ultimately became fluent in).
Graduate Studies
Millett went on to earn his MA and PhD at the University of New Mexico in 1962 and 1966, respectively.
The public source identifies “Richard Leroy Millett” as american Historian and Author. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Richard, Leroy and Millett.
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This entry incorporates text from “Richard Leroy Millett” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.