James Chace

James Chace "one of the country's leading foreign policy thinkers and historians, whose work altered mainstream thought about American global power, died Friday [2004] night of a heart attack in Paris. He was 72.

"His death was reported by his companion of many years, Joan Bingham, executive editor and vice president of Grove/Atlantic Press, the New York publishing house.

"He was the author of nine books, editor of the nation's most influential foreign policy journals and mentor to scores of younger writers and historians. He is best known for his biography of Dean Acheson, "Acheson: The Secretary of State Who Created the American World" (1999). Robert Silvers, co-editor of The New York Review of Books, called the book a crucial revision of postwar history and "an exceptional insight into the cold war establishment."...

"He served as managing editor of East Europe, a political review of Soviet bloc affairs, from 1959 to 1969; then of Interplay, a foreign policy journal, from 1967 to 1970; then of Foreign Affairs, from 1970 to 1983...

"After a stint as an editor at The New York Times Book Review, Mr. Chace became the Henry Luce Professor in Freedom of Inquiry and Expression at Bard, in 1990. Two years later he also became editor of World Policy Journal.

"Mr. Chace's marriages to Ms. Valentine and to Susan Chace ended in divorce. He is survived by them; by Ms. Bingham; by three daughters, Sarah, an administrator at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard; Rebecca, a novelist; and Zoe, a student and political activist; and by two grandchildren."

• Advisory Council, American Ditchley Foundation
• Founding Member, French-American Foundation