Heyward Isham

ISHAM--Heyward, died June 18 of cardiac arrest, at 82 years of age. Mr. Isham was born in New York City, attended Phillips Academy, earned his BA from Yale and studied at Columbia University's Russian institute in Garmisch, Germany. Mr. Isham had a long and distinguished career in the U.S. State Department, beginning in 1950 with the U.S. Mission in Berlin serving under U.S. High Commissioner John McCloy and rising to Ambassador to Haiti and Assistant Secretary of State and Director of the Office for Combating Terrorism. Mr. Isham also served in the US Embassy in Moscow under Ambassador Charles Bohlen, during the height of the Cold War and US Consulate in Hong Kong where he was one of the first to recognize the emerging Sino-Soviet rift. In 1971-1972 Mr. Isham served as Deputy and Chief of the US Delegation to the Paris Talks on Vietnam negotiating directly with the North Vietnamese which resulted in the Paris Peace Accords signed on January 17, 1973 ending more than 10 years of direct US military involvement in Vietnam. Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger said of Mr. Isham's work, "He made a tremendous contribution." In retirement Mr. Isham became a senior editor at Doubleday publishing the memoirs of Andrei Gromyko, Soviet Foreign Minister during the more tense time of the cold war and authored two important books in 1995 and in 2001 introducing new Russian writers to the world. In 1990 Mr. Isham became Vice President and Ambassador-in-Residence at the East-West Institute in New York. For the past 15 years, the Ishams' principal home has been in Sagapon- ack where he was a known and loved member of the community. Mr. Isham is survived by his wife of 59 years, the noted artist Sheila Eaton Isham, and two sons Christopher E. Isham, Vice President and Washington Bureau Chief for CBS News, and Ralph H. Isham, Managing Partner, GH Venture Partners, LLC in New York City and nine grandchildren. His daughter Sandra Isham Vreeland died in 1996. In lieu of flowers please send donations to Hopital Albert Schweitzer Haiti, PO Box 81046, Pittsburgh, PA 15217 or visit: www.hashaiti.org