UPDATE: Dr. Vivian Chen, and friends and colleagues of Charles J. “Chuck” Lewis, are arranging a memorial service for the veteran Washington bureau chief on Sept. 25 at 10 a.m. at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.
Lewis, who led the Washington bureaus of the Associated Press and Hearst Newspapers during a distinguished 45-year career in print journalism, died on March 20 at the age of 80. His ashes were interred in a family plot in his beloved Montana on August 14.
Lewis worked tirelessly as AP bureau chief in the mid-1980s to seek the release of AP correspondent Terry Anderson from kidnappers in Lebanon. Lewis also co-wrote “Killing Our Own: Friendly Fire in the Persian Gulf War,” an award-winning expose that revealed the extent of U.S. military fratricide during the 1991 campaign to oust Iraqi occupation troops from Kuwait.
The National Press Club currently requires attendees to be fully vaccinated or have a negative covid test within 72 hours. Proof is required. The DC Mayor currently has a mask mandate in place for indoor gatherings. Masks can be removed while eating or drinking or if speaking at a podium.
Charles J. “Chuck” Lewis, a former bureau chief of The Associated Press and Hearst Newspapers in Washington and a former chairman of the National Press Foundation, died Sunday at age 80 from complications of cancer.
Lewis was known for his tireless efforts to free the AP’s Lebanon bureau chief, Terry Anderson, who was kidnapped in Beirut in 1985 and held until 1991.
He was dedicated to training journalists and served NPF for more than two decades, on the board of directors and dinner committee and as board chair.
“Chuck was a strong believer in journalist training and his service on the NPF board of directors is a testament to that,” said Sandy K. Johnson, NPF president emeritus and a former Washington AP bureau chief who succeeded Lewis in that role.
Frank Aukofer, a former president of NPF, remembered him as “a great newsman and friend.”
“I first met him in the early 1980s at a cocktail party of some sort at the National Botanical Garden on Capitol Hill,” Aukofer wrote. “He introduced himself and, as we chatted, I found that he seemed to know all about me – a reporter from the sticks (the Milwaukee Journal) who had just come to town. I thought, ‘Wow! the AP’s Washington bureau chief knows about me.’”
Robert Meyers, NPF’s president from 1993 to 2005, said Lewis was always open to innovation in service of journalism.
“Whatever the idea was – whether it was conferences around the country or video conferences in Washington going around the country, he was in favor of it if it supported journalism education,” Meyers said.
Lewis was born in Bozeman, Montana, in 1940, graduated from Loyola University in Chicago and Columbia Law School, and came to Washington because of his interest in the Watergate story.
He is survived by his wife Dr. Vivian Tse Chen, along three children from a previous marriage – Peter in Madison, Wisconsin; Patrick in Hollywood, California; and Barbara in Falls Church, Virginia — as well as a stepdaughter, Rebecca, in New York, and several grandchildren, according to the AP.
His AP obituary is here.
