Former AP correspondent John Fenton Wheeler, last US reporter in Cold War-era Cuba, dies at 88

COLUMBIA, Mo. – John Fenton Wheeler, an Associated Press foreign correspondent who was the last U.S. reporter expelled from Cold War-era Cuba, has died. He was 88.

According to a Parker Funeral Service obituary, Wheeler died on April 21.

Wheeler's 21-year AP career included posts in Chile, Cuba, Spain, Portugal and Peru. He joined the news cooperative in 1964 in Columbus, Ohio and retired in 1985 as a chief of bureau. He was expelled from Havana in 1969 for coverage deemed unfavorable to Fidel Castro's government.

Wheeler was born on April 10, 1925, in Salina, Kan. He worked for the Topeka Daily Capital and the Corpus Christi Caller-Times in Texas before joining AP.

He retired to Columbia, Mo., in 1994.

He wrote a 2008 memoir chronicling his reporting efforts entitled "Last Man Out."