Hyland, William G. 1929-2008 (William Hyland, William George Hyland)

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born January 18, 1929, in Kansas City, MO; died of an aortic aneurysm, March 25, 2008, in Fairfax, VA. Intelligence agent, foreign policy expert, presidential advisor, educator, editor, and author. Hyland spent much of his career in high-level government service. He worked as an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1950s. He headed the Bureau of Intelligence and Research under President Richard Nixon, served as deputy national security advisor to President Gerald Ford, and was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to be a representative of the National Security Council, among other prestigious assignments. After 1976 Hyland worked at the Center for Strategic and International Studies at Georgetown University and affiliated himself with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. As a member of the influential Council on Foreign Relations he edited the journal Foreign Affairs from 1984 to 1992. After his retirement from government service he taught at the College of William and Mary and other institutions. Hyland was an expert on the Soviet Union during the Cold War years; after the breakup of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s he became a proponent of disengagement from foreign intelligence operations and arms control issues in favor of spending government money on domestic issues. He wrote several books in his field of expertise, including Mortal Rivals: Superpower Relations from Nixon to Reagan (1986), The Cold War Is Over (1990), and Clinton's World: Remaking American Foreign Policy (1999). Hyland was also a former trumpet player and serious aficionado of music. In his retirement years he occupied himself with writing about this lifelong leisure interest; his books include The Song Is Ended: Songwriters and American Music, 1900-1950 (1994) and George Gershwin: A New Biography (2003).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Chicago Tribune, March 30, 2008, sec. 4, p. 6.

Los Angeles Times, March 31, 2008, p. B7.

New York Times, March 29, 2008, p. A14.