Conor Cruise O'Brien, 91; Irish Author, Diplomat and Contrarian

Conor Cruise O'Brien, 91, a leading Irish author, politician and diplomat who rose to international prominence while heading a United Nations mission in the troubled Congo and remained an independent, often-contrarian thinker amid the religious strife of his homeland, died Dec. 18 at his home near Dublin.

No immediate cause of death was reported, but he suffered a mild stroke 10 years ago.

Mr. O'Brien came from a family with a notable literary and political pedigree. Several of his family members, including his mother, were the basis of characters in the works of Irish writer James Joyce.

Mr. O'Brien was a dramatist, newspaper editor and prolific contributor to publications such as the Atlantic magazine and the New York Review of Books.

Stocky, urbane and outspoken, "The Cruiser," as he was known to friends, wrote influential books and essays, on subjects ranging from a 1981 biography of British statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke to a history of Israel and Zionism ("The Siege," 1986).

The late Israeli statesman and diplomat Abba Eban praised the meticulous research of "The Siege," noting it "bears the mark of a restless, original idiosyncratic mind."

Mr. O'Brien spent much of his early career in the Irish foreign office, and his experiences in Congo in 1961 transformed him into a widely known public figure. He had gone to Africa to prevent the secessionist effort in Congo's mineral-rich Katanga province.

He drew attention for his accusations that several European governments, including England, were tacitly in favor of the secessionist effort. He also accused the Congo's interior minister of a "murderous conspiracy" against U.N. troops in the region.

Mr. O'Brien further expounded on his episode in Congo in the book "To Katanga and Back" (1963), which cast a scathing eye at the United Nations, and in his play "Murderous Angels," which reached Broadway in 1971.

His work in Congo won him admiration from many on the political left as well as leaders in newly independent African countries. Among them was Kwame Nkrumah, president of Ghana, who talked Mr. O'Brien into the vice chancellorship of the University of Ghana.

But the former Irish diplomat famously left Ghana in disgust after three years. He had clashed over academic freedoms with the economically and politically embattled Nkrumah, who was also the university's chancellor.

Mr. O'Brien said in 1965 in announcing he would leave the university: "A strange and erroneous idea has grown up that encouragement of criticism and independent thought is a colonialist or neocolonialist scheme, whereas enforcement of intellectual conformity is anticolonialist and conducive to freedom and unity of Africa.