Trask, Roger R. 1930–2008

(Roger Reed Trask)

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born September 14, 1930, in Erie, PA; died of kidney cancer, April 18, 2008, in Bradenton, FL. Historian, educator, and author. Trask completed a twenty-year academic career before entering the government sector as a professional historian. Between 1959 and 1979 he taught history at Upsala College in New Jersey, Thiel College, Macalester College, and the University of South Florida. His specialty during those years was the diplomatic history of the United States, and his early writings focused on foreign relations and diplomacy. In 1977 he began an affiliation with federal agencies that would consume another twenty years or more. In the late seventies Trask was a chief historian for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He then worked for the U.S. Department of Defense and the General Accounting Office (now known as the Government Accountability Office). For ten years, beginning in 1994, he returned to the Defense Department in the role of a consultant assigned to gather oral histories. He also helmed the Society for History in the Federal Government. The books that Trask published in his "second career" reflect his interest in the history of federal agencies. They include The Secretaries of Defense: A Brief History, 1947-1985 (1985), GAO History, 1921-1991 (1991), Defender of the Public Interest: The General Accounting Office, 1921-1966 (1996), and The Department of Defense, 1947-1997: Organization and Leaders (1997).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Washington Post, May 4, 2008, p. C8.