HOOPES, Townsend (Walter), II 1922-2004

OBITUARY NOTICE— See index for CA sketch: Born April 28, 1922, in Duluth, MN; died of complications from melanoma September 20, 2004, in Baja California, Mexico. Government official, consultant, and author. Hoopes was a former secretary of the U.S. Air Force who gained attention for his criticisms of government policies in Vietnam and with the Soviet Union. Graduating from Yale University in 1944, Hoopes entered the U.S. Marine Corps during the last months of World War II, serving in Iwo Jima and in post-war Japan. After a brief stint with the Buffalo Evening News as an editorial writer, he entered government work as an assistant to the chair of the committee of armed services in Washington, D.C. Hoopes became involved in federal defense, working for the secretary of defense in various positions and finally becoming under secretary of defense for the U.S. Air Force from 1967 to 1969, during the Lyndon Johnson administration. After leaving Washington in 1969, he startled his former superiors with his first book, The Limits of Intervention: An Inside Account of How theJohnson Policy of Escalation Was Reversed in Vietnam (1969), which pointed out the policy mistakes the U.S. made in Vietnam. While involved in government, Hoopes also held various corporate jobs, including as an assistant to the president of Spencer Chemical, as an associate to the investment banking firm J. H. Whitney and Company in the mid-1950s, and as a partner with the consulting firm Cresap, McCormick & Paget, where he was later named vice president and director of the Washington, D.C., office from 1969 to 1971. From 1973 to 1986, Hoopes was president and corporate director of the Association of American Publishers, and from 1995 to 2001 he served as vice chair of the AIDS Therapy Institute. Even after leaving government, he remained critical of American military policies, often commenting negatively on how the United States dealt with the issue of arms control and the Soviet Union. Among Hoopes's other writings are Townsend Hoopes on Arms Control (1987), Driven Patriot: The Life and Times of James Forrestal (1992), FDR and the Creation of the U.N. (1997), and his final book, the novel A Textured Web (2000).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Los Angeles Times, October 13, 2004, p. B11. New York Times, October 10, 2004, p. A34. Washington Post, September 25, 2004, p. B6.