SEPTEMBER 2021 • LONGISLANDPRESS.COM 115
OBITUARY
PRISCILLA JOHNSON MCMILLAN
COLD WAR REPORTER
BY BRIANA BONFIGLIO
Long Island native Priscilla Johnson
McMillan, a famous author, historian,
and journalist who reported on the
Soviet Union during the Cold War in
the ‘50s, died on July 7 at age 92.
McMillan was born in Glen Cove and
grew up in Locust Valley. She earned
a master’s degree in regional studies
from Harvard University’s Davis Center
for Russian and Eurasian Studies.
As one of the first women to graduate
from the Davis Center, she remained
in close contact with the institution,
making a toast at its 65th anniversary
party in 2014.
“She spent many long hours in Davis
Center seminars asking knifesharp
questions thinly coated with
a veneer of innocence,” Alexandra
Vacroux, executive director of the
Davis Center, wrote in a tribute to
McMillan. “She was a loyal colleague,
dear friend, and important mentor
to many of us, and will be deeply
missed.”
Fluent in Russian, McMillan traveled to
Moscow to report on the Soviet Union
in 1955. During her time there, McMillan
famously interviewed Lee Harvey
Oswald just four years before he assassinated
President John F. Kennedy. After
2022
LAST WEEK
TO NOMINATE!
THERE'S THE BEST
THEN THERE'S EVERYONE ELSE
NOMINATE YOUR FAVORITE BUSINESSES
THROUGH AUGUST 31ST AT
BESTOFLONGISLAND.COM
516-962-3700
To keep up to date on the contest and see winners follow @bestofli
Oswald’s subsequent murder, McMillan
interviewed his widow, Marina Oswald,
and published the acclaimed historical
study, Marina and Lee: The Tormented
Love and Fatal Obsession Behind Lee
Harvey Oswald's Assassination of John
F. Kennedy, in 1977.
Before her writing career, McMillan
briefly worked for Kennedy’s office
when he was a senator, and she was
therefore known as the only person
who personally knew both Kennedy
and his assassinator.
McMillan was also known for her
2005 book, The Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer.
She worked as a Russian
translator for The New York Times and
published articles in several publications,
including Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists.
“Priscilla was generous with her time
and intelligence,” said Kennette Benedict,
a senior advisor to the Bulletin
and former executive director and publisher
for the organization, in Bulletin’s
tribute to McMillan. “She was astonishingly
knowledgeable about Russia as it
emerged from the Cold War and equally
modest. She will be greatly missed.”
McMillan’s Marina and Lee was republished
in 2013. Her niece is reportedly
writing her biography.
Priscilla Johnson McMillan at Harvard University in 2014. (Photo by Lou Goodman)
/LONGISLANDPRESS.COM
/BESTOFLONGISLAND.COM
