Leslie B. Rout, Jr., a member of the Department of History at Michigan State University since 1967, died on April 2, 1987 from complications caused by hepatitis. He is survived by his wife, Kathleen and two children, Deirdre, age 15, and Leslie, III, age 9.
Rout was born in Chicago, Illinois, on February 26, 1935. Rout received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history from Loyola University, but it was his interest in music that brought him to Latin American studies. After the Paul Winter Sextet, with Rout on baritone saxophone, won at the Notre Dame Jazz Festival in 1962, they were asked by the Department of State to tour South America. Following his return to the United States, Rout began the Ph.D. program in Latin American history at the University of Minnesota. While in the doctoral program, Rout played with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra, the Claude Thornhill Orchestra, and the Woody Herman Orchestra. After his graduation in 1966, Rout spent one year at Purdue University. The next year he came to Michigan State University where he spent the rest of his academic career.
Les Rout’s historical writings (he also published articles on jazz) centered on three major themes. His first two books, Politics of the Chaco Peace Conference: 1935-39 and Which Way Out? A Study of the Guyana-Venezuelan Boundary Crisis, examined the international politics surrounding a particular controversy. His second area of interest was blacks in South America. As a black himself, Rout was continually annoyed by the suggestion that Latin America was a racial paradise, when he knew personally that this was not the case. This theme was reflected in The African Experience in Spanish America, in which Rout surveyed the available literature on Spanish America in a single volume demonstrating that racism is endemic there. His third major area of interest was World War II in South America. In The Shadow War: German Espionage and United States Counterespionage in Latin America during World War II (co-authored with John F. Bratzel), Rout detailed the role of espionage in Latin American politics during the war. It won the “best book” award for 1986 from the National Intelligence Study Center. Before he died, Rout had just received a Fulbright grant to write a military history of the Falklands War from the Argentine point of view.
Besides the “best book” award for Shadow War, Rout also won numerous other honors. Michigan State University presented him with the Teacher-Scholar Award and Phi Kappa Phi selected him as a member. He was appointed as a fellow to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and as a member of the Commission on History of the Pan American Institute of Geography and History. The Ford Foundation, American Philosophical Society, and Fulbright Foundation all chose him as a grant recipient. He was also a visiting professor at Harvard University, Northwestern University, and Oberlin College.
As a historian, Les Rout viewed history as a series of power relationships. Other causative factors such as ideology, a charismatic individual, or the politicizing of a mass group only had relevance, according to Rout, based on how they affected the garnering and use of power. Thus, when Latin America agreed to help the United States halt German spying in World War II, it was not because of their horror at Nazi atrocities, but because of Allied victories on the battlefield and Allied ability to supply South America with weapons. Rout often contended that change came through money or arms, and it was the historian’s job to find out who had them and who was willing to use them. In this quest, Rout was tireless, often staying up half the night writing and researching.
Rout was also a fine teacher. In lectures, he was a showman, but even as students enjoyed his commentaries, they were being deluged with sophisticated concepts. He was a demanding teacher, requiring that all work be lucidly written, well researched, and, moreover, done immediately. Mistakes, even a misspelled word, cost “credibility tickets” for the writer. Failure to meet deadlines brought forth the “get down to business” lecture.
The late David C. Bailey, one of Rout’s colleagues, used to quote Charles Cumberland, who had commented often that “God only made one Les Rout.” Alas, I suspect that it is true and we are all the poorer for it.
