BURTON, Sandra 1941(?)-2004

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born c. 1941, in Long Beach, CA; died February 27, 2004, in Bali, Indonesia. Journalist and author. Burton was a former correspondent for Time magazine who was most often remembered for her reportage in Asia. A graduate of Middlebury College, where she earned her bachelor's degree, her first journalism job came in 1963 with the Hunterdon County Democrat in New Jersey. A secretarial job at Time in 1964 led to a research position the following year, and in 1970 Burton was hired as a correspondent in Los Angeles for the Time-Life News Service. Increasingly more important positions followed, including being named Boston bureau chief from 1973 to 1976, followed by a lengthy post in Paris as a correspondent, and then bureau chief positions in Hong Kong from 1982 to 1986 and Beijing from 1988 until 1990. From 1990 to 1997 she continued to work for Time as a senior correspondent in Hong Kong; thereafter she was a freelance journalist for the magazine. Some of the most important events that Burton covered occurred while she was in Asia, including the assassination of Benigno Aquino Jr. in the Philippines and the Tiananmen Square massacre in China. Burton wrote about her experience in the Philippines in her book, Impossible Dream: The Marcoses, the Aquinos, and the Unfinished Revolution (1989). At the time of her death, she was working on a biography of the nineteenth century rajah James Brook.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Chicago Tribune, March 1, 2004, Section 4, p. 10.

New York Times, March 2, 2004, p. A25.

Washington Post, March 1, 2004, p. B5.