An Appreciation

By Richard L. Duncan/Chief of Correspondents, 1978-85

One TIME correspondent who worked for Murray Gart, who became chief of the Time-Life News Service in 1969, remembers him as a "force of nature." Others might be more specific and not always complimentary. But whether Murray came on like a raging tornado or a relentlessly pressing tide, his presence always drove those around him toward better journalism. Gart, who died on March 31, was the chief of TIME's team of correspondents until 1978, in an era marked by the Vietnam War, Watergate, turbulence in the Middle East and the nuclear-arms race. Reporting by the media was intense and competitive, and Gart owned one of the biggest budgets and oversaw 100 correspondents around the world. Sometimes it seemed as if every day he personally directed each one of us reporting in the field. His TIME Washington bureau was second only to the Washington Post in revelations leading to President Nixon's resignation.

In 1978 Gart became editor of Time Inc.'s latest acquisition, the Washington Star, a struggling daily newspaper that folded in 1981. Afterward he eased into a life centered on his family and a continuing close study of Middle Eastern affairs while he remained in contact with numerous former colleagues, who savored their relationships with the mellower Murray, whom they had always suspected of lurking behind the "force." Richard L. Duncan Chief of Correspondents, 1978-85