BOSTON GLOBE • October 10, 2020
Donald MacGillis wrote about the wilderness with such reverence that his prose edged toward poetry as he led readers across rugged terrain. Into the wilderness he often walked, and it was atop Mount Katahdin in Maine, a place he loved and liked to revisit, that an accidental 50-foot fall led to his death on Wednesday, at 74. A careful hiker, Mr. MacGillis left only footsteps — and crisp, graceful writing as bracing as mountain air. “I don’t know anyone in my life who had less pretense than Don MacGillis. He was completely straightforward, honest, sincere, and right-minded,” added Benjamin, who also formerly was the US State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism.