Information through Sullivan Funeral Home
Harold G. Jones, formerly of Bridgehampton, died Tuesday, March 17th. He was 86 years old.
Jones was born in Bridgehampton on October 28, 1928 and attended Hampton Bays High School and graduated from Southampton High School.
He continued his studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and graduated with a degree in journalism.
He won the Inter-American Press Association scholarship and studied for a year in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
He later earned a master's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, Columbia, and a law degree from the California College of Law.
From 1950 to 1952, Jones served in Company F 511th Airborne Infantry Regiment at Fort Campbell, Kentucky and earned the Superior Paratrooper Badge after making 50 jumps.
He worked for many news organizations, including the Knoxville News Sentinel, United Press International, San Francisco Daily Commercial News and Copley News Service where he served as a foreign correspondent in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Mexico City, Mexico; and Saigon, Vietnam.
He interviewed many important figures in the 1960s and 1970s in Latin America, including the revolutionary Che Guevara and the writer Jorge Luis Borges, along with Presidents Díaz Ordaz and López Mateos of Mexico. Salvador Allende of Chile? Anastasio Somoza from Nicaragua? Jose Napoleon Duarte of El Salvador. and Alfredo Stroessner of Paraguay.
He also interviewed notable Americans who visited Latin America, including Robert Kennedy, Presidents Nixon and Johnson, Governor Edmund Brown and actor John Wayne, author Benjamin Spock, and astronaut Wally Sira.
Later, he became a university professor, teaching journalism at several campuses in the California State University system, as well as Mary Washington University in Virginia and Bentley University and Emerson College in Massachusetts.
Jones is survived by his wife, Mary Thompson-Jones, his children, Andrea Williams, Gareth Jones and Gwyneth Jones. son-in-law Sean Williams; Grandchildren Colin and Elinor. cousins Sharon, Rachel, Jennifer and Muriel; In-laws Chet and Mary Thompson. and brothers-in-law Chet and Colin.
