1. Kenneth Hogate Bacon was an American journalist who served as a spokesman for the Department of Defense during the Presidency of Bill Clinton, and later as president of Refugees International, an organization advocating for displaced persons and solutions for displacement crises.
Kenneth Bacon attended Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, for high school, graduating in 1962; the school honored him in 2007 with its John Phillips Award, which recognizes graduates for their contributions to society.
Kenneth Bacon earned his undergraduate degree at Amherst College, where his father was a dean and taught political science.
Kenneth Bacon served in the US Army Reserve from 1968 to 1974.
Kenneth Bacon was assigned to the paper's bureau in Washington, DC, working his way up to become a columnist and editor.
Kenneth Bacon invited Bacon to serve as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, serving as the public face of the Defense Department.
In 1997 Kenneth Bacon was retained in his post by Perry's successor at the Defense Department, William Cohen.
Kenneth Bacon later said he had never before realized "the sheer magnitude of one million people leaving their homes and needing food, shelter and medical care" and then returning to their homes after the cessation of hostilities and wondered if [those who had assisted] Kosovar refugees could "give the same attention to the refugees in the Congo, Afghanistan and Sudan".
In March 1998, Kenneth Bacon released details of employee Linda Tripp's personnel file to a reporter, disclosing that Tripp had omitted on her employment application an incident that occurred when she was arrested for theft when she was 19 years old.
Kenneth Bacon was criticized for violating privacy laws and harming Tripp's reputation.
Kenneth Bacon issued a statement that the information he released was driven by "a desire to be responsive to an urgent media inquiry" and that the Inspector General's two-year investigation did not find any connection to the White House.
Kenneth Bacon said he recognized that becoming a refugee was a matter of circumstance that could affect anyone, noting that his own "blue-blooded WASP" ancestors were refugees themselves, who "came over from England in 1630, fleeing debts for all I know".
Kenneth Bacon focused much of his work on advocating for additional protection and assistance to displaced people from Sudan's Darfur region and Iraq.
Kenneth Bacon drew attention to displaced people in Afghanistan, Burma, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Colombia and Thailand.
In September 2003, Kenneth Bacon encouraged French participation in the peacekeeping forces in Iraq, based on that nation's prior experience in such circumstances.
Five days before his death, Refugees International announced that Kenneth Bacon had endowed a new program to focus on people displaced by climate change.
Kenneth Bacon wrote an essay about health care reform from his own perspective as a cancer patient, a "matter of life and death" for him, that was published in The Washington Post 25 days before his death.
Kenneth Bacon's recommendations included prevention and online efficiencies, citing his own example of melanoma that could have been treatable if caught earlier given a family history of the condition.
Kenneth Bacon described difficulties in obtaining approval for payment of radiation therapy for cancer that had spread to his brain, which his insurer had deemed "not medically necessary", and expressed frustration with the amount of time he and his physician had to spend in dealing with paperwork.
Kenneth Bacon served as chairman of the Folger Shakespeare Library and was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.