James Paul Brown Jr., 89; journalist loved to express his views, sailing
Journalist James Paul Brown Jr. never let his job stand in the way of expressing his strong convictions. In 1967, with the Vietnam War raging, his antiwar editorials for the Providence Journal raised hackles at top levels of the paper and eventually led to Mr. Brown's resignation, his family said.
Several days later, The New York Times hired Mr. Brown as an editorial writer, said his son Clement of Fall River. He would remain there for 10 years, writing about such topics as the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East, where he had traveled widely.
Mr. Brown, who later moved to Camden, Maine, and wrote a waterfront column for Down East magazine for 12 years before retiring at 65 to sail and write freelance articles, died of pneumonia Wednesday at Charlton Memorial Hospital in Fall River. He was 89 and had lived in the Clifton Rehabilitative Nursing Center in Somerset.
His son said Mr. Brown had suffered several strokes in recent years. Mr. Brown and his wife of 59 years, the late Trudell (Green) Brown, moved from Maine to Rhode Island about nine years ago to be near their family.
Mr. Brown got to know Maine as city editor of several of its newspapers, including the Portland Press Herald. A lifelong sailor, he relished the peace and beauty of the Maine coast, where he could take his grandchildren out on his sloop, the "Old Gaffer," named for himself, friends said.
Although he had led a cosmopolitan life, Mr. Brown remained a New Englander at heart, in appearance and in his strong work ethic, said Davis Thomas of Camden, Mr. Brown's editor at Down East.
"Jim was compact and very fit, and had a twinkle in his eyes," Thomas said. "With his bushy eyebrows and a bit of a roll in his walk, he even looked like a mariner. But there was nothing theatrical about Jim. He was a prince of a man."
In his Down East articles, Mr. Brown wrote about boating, local people, and grass-roots Maine rather than upscale boats, people, or places, said his longtime friend and sailing buddy, Dave Jackson of Camden. Mr. Brown had also written for Jackson's "Small Boats Journal."
Mr. Brown was born in Media, Pa., to James Paul and Blanche (Wheelock) Brown. After graduating from Swarthmore High School in 1939, he attended Middlebury College in Vermont for a year before leaving to join the military at the outbreak of World War II.
His son said he planned to join the Navy, but because the line was so long at the recruitment center he enlisted in the Marines.
A Quaker, Mr. Brown opted to carry the 75-pound communications radio around instead of a rifle, his son said, thereby putting himself in harm's way by being a target for snipers. He saw action at Guadalcanal, New Guinea, New Britain, and in the Palau campaigns.
During battle, he was wounded and saved a fellow Marine, earning him both the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star.
After the war, Mr. Brown received his bachelor's degree from Yale University in 1948, the year he and Trudell married.
Although Mr. Brown aspired to join the foreign service, according to his son, he got his first newspaper job covering police and the city for the New London Day in Connecticut.
In 1955, he was awarded the Reid Foundation Fellowship for a year to study a country of his choice, and chose India and settled his young family in New Delhi. While there he volunteered to deliver powdered milk to remote villages for the American Friends Service Committee.
In 1960, Mr. Brown got a job with the US Information Agency as a press officer in Calcutta.
The family returned to the United States in 1962 and Mr. Brown worked for the Providence Journal for five years. For a time, Mr. Brown's son said, the Journal allowed Mr. Brown to express his antiwar views in a column titled "One Man's Opinion."
Whether for the Journal or the Times, his editorials were always trenchant, former colleagues said. Some of his observations could apply to the issues facing the country today.
His lead paragraph on a Times editorial in November 1971, headlined "The Profligate Society," said: "The most profligate society in history received a rude awakening last week when President Nixon warned Americans they must face the 'very stark fact that we are heading toward the most acute shortage of energy since World War II.' "
Perhaps Mr. Brown's most lyrical writing appeared in his sailing stories. In one from 1965, he wrote in the Providence Journal of the maiden voyage aboard his 13-foot sailing dory, "Sweet Chariot" with his friend, Dave Jackson: "No man who loves the sea is so cautious that he will turn down a chance for sea-going adventure in a good boat."
In addition to his son, Mr. Brown leaves another son, Matthew of Los Angeles; three grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
A memorial Friends meeting will be held at a later date. 