Celebrated Foreign Correspondent

Roy Essayan was born in the Japanese village of Tsurga just after his family landed there in 1919 to escape the Bolshevik Revolution. In 1958 he was expelled from the Soviet Union for reporting a serious breach had developed between the USSR and Mao Zedong’s China. His scoop was described by the Soviet foreign ministry as “a rude violation of Soviet censorship”. Essayan became head of the Associate Press’s Middle East bureau  in 1965 and reported from Cairo, Beirut, Hong Kong and Tokyo. He retired in Hawaii in 1985 and died at the age of 92. His Armenian name was Karekin.

Roy Essayan was born in the Japanese village of Tsurga just after his family landed there in 1919 to escape the Bolshevik Revolution. In 1958 he was expelled from the Soviet Union for reporting a serious breach had developed between the USSR and Mao Zedong’s China. His scoop was described by the Soviet foreign ministry as “a rude violation of Soviet censorship”. Essayan became head of the Associate Press’s Middle East bureau  in 1965 and reported from Cairo, Beirut, Hong Kong and Tokyo. He retired in Hawaii in 1985 and died at the age of 92. His Armenian name was Karekin.