Nancy Gordon Heinl, both writers and historians, lived in Haiti from 1959 to 1963. Robert Heinl was Chief of the U.S. Naval Mission to Haiti until he was declared persona non grata by François Duvalier. He retired from the Marine Corps in 1964 and wrote a nationally syndicated newspaper column until his death in 1979. Nancy Gordon Heinl was an independent writer and journalist who wrote extensively on black history and voodoo. Born in London, she came to the United States in 1933. She died in 1997.