Kenya's New Fireman

Richard Leakey spent years trying to save Africa's animals. Now he's trying to save a nation

The mercurial relationship between Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi and renowned paleoanthropologist and wildlife advocate Richard Leakey has transfixed Kenyans for more than a decade. After first meeting Moi in 1968, Leakey gave occasional advice to the President, and in 1989 Moi made Leakey head of the Kenya Wildlife Service. Then came drama. Leakey quit and helped form an anticorruption opposition party; Moi branded him a neocolonial racist; a state-owned newspaper tied Leakey to the Ku Klux Klan; and progovernment thugs beat him when he attended a colleague's court hearing. "How much of it was deep [hatred] and how much of...

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