Robert Fred Ellsworth
Politician. Republican. Born: June 11, 1926. Died: May 9, 2011, La Jolla, California. Served in U.S. House of Representatives, 2nd and 3rd Districts: January 3, 1961-January 3, 1967.
Robert Fred Ellsworth was born and raised in Lawrence, Kansas. He graduated from the University of Kansas in 1945 and four years later received a juris doctorate from the University of Michigan School of Law. He was an officer in the U.S. Navy at the end of the Second World War, 1944-1946, and served during the Korean Conflict, 1950-1953. He taught at the University of Kansas School of Business in 1954-1955 and practiced law in Lawrence, Kansas, and Springfield, Massachusetts. He was in private practice in Lawrence when he sought and won election to the 87th Congress in 1960. Ellsworth failed in his bid for the U.S. Senate nomination in 1966 but remained active in Kansas and national politics. He subsequently served as the National Political Director of Richard M. Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign, a special assistant to President Nixon in 1969, permanent representative on the Council of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, with the rank of ambassador from 1969-1971, and in a variety of other public and private capacities at home a abroad. In 2003 Ambassador Ellsworth, at that time a resident of Comus, Maryland, was appointed to the U.S.-China Economic Security Review Commission. Subsequently he moved to California where he was chairman and founding director of Hamilton BioVentures at Solana Beach; Ellsworth died on May 9, 2011, in La Jolla, California.
Entry: Ellsworth, Robert Fred
Author: Kansas Historical Society
Author information: The Kansas Historical Society is a state agency charged with actively safeguarding and sharing the state's history.
Date Created: June 2011
Date Modified: May 2012
The author of this article is solely responsible for its content.
