CHACE, James (Clarke) 1931-2004

OBITUARY NOTICE— See index for CA sketch: Born October 16, 1931, in Fall River, MA; died of a heart attack October 8, 2004, in Paris, France. Editor and author. Although he never held a government post, as editor of publications like Foreign Affairs Chace became a respected as an expert on foreign policy. His interest in politics was sparked after he graduated from Harvard University in 1953. He went to the University of Paris for graduate courses at the Institut d'Études Politiques and became caught up in the political debates there about Algeria, Vietnam, and other French international interests. Joining the U.S. Army in 1954, he served as a translator for the next two years. Returning home, Chace found work with various magazines' editorial departments, first with Esquire, and then with East Europe and Interplay. In 1970 he was named managing editor of Foreign Affairs, where he became a respected authority on international politics and often wrote on the United States' changing role in the world. After leaving that journal in 1983, Chace became a member of the New York Times Book Review's editorial board until 1987. A year spent as senior associate for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace was followed by his first academic appointment: director of the Program on International Affairs and the Media at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. Named a chevalier des Arts et Lettres by the government of France in 1986, in 1990 he became a professor of government and public law and administration at Bard College. As an author, Chace published biographies, political analyses, the memoir What We Had (1990), and even a novel, The Rules of the Game (1960). Among his nonfiction works are A World Elsewhere: The New American Foreign Policy (1973), Endless War: How We Got Involved in Central America and What Can Be Done (1984), the critically acclaimed biography Acheson: The Secretary of State Who Created the American World (1998), and his last book, Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft, and Debs—The Election That Changed the Country (2004).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

periodicals

Los Angeles Times, October 14, 2004, p. B11.

New York Times, October 11, 2004, p. A27.

Times (London, England), October 18, 2004, p. 49.

Washington Post, October 10, 2004, p. C11.