Worldwide Journalist, Raconteur Ross Mark

Ross Mark, 80, a foreign correspondent who roamed the world for Reuters and the London Daily Express, died July 14 of cancer at his home in Washington. He was a 53-year member of the National Press Club.

Mr. Mark, whose work was syndicated worldwide, was an Australian who covered the Korean War, Africa and the Soviet Union as well as the White House and political campaigns in the United States.

The quintessential foreign correspondent, dashing and with an engaging Aussie accent, he much preferred globe-hopping as a reporter to staying in one place and climbing the career ladder as a London editor. According to William Lowther, a friend and fellow journalist, he shared the dictum often expressed by former Baltimore Sun foreign correspondent Gilbert Lewthwaite: "Happiness is measured by the number of miles from the head office."

Mr. Mark did enjoy his creature comforts. When he left Washington in 1959 to report from Moscow, Mr. Mark had just bought a "Cotswold blue" Jaguar, Lowther recalled. He loved the car and wangled permission from Sir Max Aitken, owner of the Daily Express, to ship the car to Moscow at the newspaper's expense.

When the car's battery fell victim to Moscow's punishing cold and the Soviet office overseeing foreign correspondents couldn't get him another one, he threatened to write a story saying the Soviet Union was so hapless it couldn't even provide a simple battery. The next day, two men arrived to install a huge tank battery under the hood.

When he was made chief Africa correspondent in 1962, the car went along, again at Daily Express expense. He eventually wrecked his beloved Jag while following a road race near Nairobi.

Ross Folkard Mark was born in a small town near Sydney called Dorrigo and grew up on the family dairy farm. That period of his life provided him with a seemingly endless supply of cocktail- and dinner-party tales about felling timber with his Uncle Bill and dragging the logs down the mountain with a team of 10 bullocks. He never forgot the creatures' names.

He got his start in the newspaper business with the Sydney Sun before sailing to London in 1948. He took a job with Reuters, which sent him to Korea in 1950 to cover the war. He moved to the Reuters-Australian Associated Press Bureau in New York City in 1952 and transferred to the Washington office two years later.

He became Washington correspondent for the London Daily Express in 1957. The newspaper sent him to Moscow in 1959, where he later covered the U-2 spy plane trial of Francis Gary Powers and space pioneer Yuri Gagarin's circling of the globe.

In Africa, he covered wars in the Congo, Rwanda and Burundi before returning to the United States in 1976. In addition to presidential races, he covered most of the major space launches from Cape Canaveral and twice reported from Vietnam. He was a member of the Daily Express reporting team that produced the book "Divided They Stand," an analysis of the 1968 presidential election.

With his cache of colorful tales, he was a legend at the National Press Club. His recipe for "Australian Roo Stew," a red-hot chili, was a Press Club contest winner.

"Ross Mark was a man of words," Lowther said. "He loved poetry and had yards and yards of Wordsworth and Keats and Shakespeare by heart and ready to recite." His favorite was "The Man From Snowy River," the long story-poem by Australian Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson.

Mr. Mark's marriage to Elizabeth Gardiner ended in divorce.

Survivors include his companion of nearly 30 years and his wife of eight years, Charmayne Marsh of the District; four children from his first marriage, Christopher Mark of Damascus, Lisbeth-Ann Mark of New York City, Catriona Gesell of Myersville and Julia Mark of Ukiah, Calif.; two brothers; a sister; 12 grandchildren; and a great-grandson.