WASHINGTON — Frances Lewine, a White House correspondent for The Associated Press during the administrations of six presidents, from Eisenhower to Carter, has died. She was 86.
Lewine, who died Saturday, joined the AP Washington bureau in 1956 to cover general assignments, including White House social events and other activities of the first family.
But despite her sometimes glamorous assignments, she often expressed frustration that she was relegated to social and family stories and sidebars while male colleagues covered the president.
Lewine’s coverage of first families was deeply appreciated, however, by Luci Baines Johnson, daughter of President Lyndon Johnson.
“Fran was a part of my daily life from the time I moved into the White House until my father moved out. She was just part of my extended family,” Johnson said. “She was there for all the big moments in my personal life from high school graduation, to my first day of university, to my marriage, through the ‘baby watch’ for my firstborn.”
Longtime White House correspondent Helen Thomas, now a columnist for Hearst Newspapers, described Lewine as “a great, great wire-service reporter with the highest integrity.”
“We were very competitive during the day,” Thomas said, “but we were great friends during the evening.”
Lewine became a leader among female journalists in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, protesting discrimination against women in jobs and assignments. She was president of the Women’s National Press Club at a time when some major journalistic organizations excluded women or limited their participation. The efforts of Lewine and others eventually led to such groups as the National Press Club and Gridiron Club opening membership to women.
Lewine left AP in 1977 to join the Carter administration and became deputy director of public affairs for the Transportation Department. When President Carter left office in 1981, she moved to the fledgling Cable News Network as an assignment editor and field producer.
Lewine, born Jan. 20, 1921, in New York, was also a member of Executive Women in Government and the Society of Professional Journalists. She was elected to the Washington Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame and to the Hunter College Hall of Fame and was awarded the Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism in October.
AP legal reporter Linda Deutsch said Lewine had undergone surgery two weeks ago to correct a blocked carotid artery. She died at home of a probable stroke, according to a coroner’s preliminary ruling, and was found by friends.
Other Deaths
Louis de Cazenave, 110, one of the last French World War I veterans, has died.
De Cazenave died in his sleep Sunday in his home in Brioude in central France, his son said.
The last known French veteran of World War I is Lazare Ponticelli, also 110.
Born in 1897, de Cazenave was called up to fight in 1916 and served in different infantry regiments before joining an artillery unit in January 1918, according to a statement from the French president’s office.
De Cazenave took part in the Battle of the Somme in 1916, when more than 1 million soldiers died. He also took part in the liberation of France from German forces, the statement said.
…
Andy Palacio, 47, a bandleader and songwriter who spearheaded a revival of the Garifuna music of Central America, died Saturday in his native Belize City, Belize.
The cause was respiratory failure after a stroke and heart attack, according to Jacob Edgar, president of his record company, Cumbancha.
In Belize, Palacio was nationally known as a musician and an advocate for Garifuna culture. “Watina,” his album with the Garifuna Collective, was acclaimed as one of the best world-music releases of 2007.
The Garifuna are descendants of West African slaves who were shipwrecked in 1635 off the coast of what is now the island of St. Vincent and intermarried with local Arawak and Carib people. Garifuna villages arose on the coasts of Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Belize. There are now an estimated 250,000 Garifuna people worldwide, a minority culture under pressure from assimilation and coastal development.
“I decided to use music as a medium for cultural preservation,” Palacio said in an interview with NPR last year. “At least we’d be able to use the language in the songs and keep them alive.”
